The Plight of Anthropology
by QueenofConstellations
Summary: Modern College AU! Anna hates college, would really rather not be here, and Professor Simcoe, constantly trying to blur the lines between professional and personal, was not making the experience any more enjoyable. And neither is that other professor, Hewlett, that ran her over in the Common... (Annlett, with some early Abe/Anna, not Anna/Simcoe)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Welcome, friends, to my first TURN fanfiction! Obviously, I realized that Annlett has very few fanfiction out there, some of which being the best fic I've read in a long time (Law, Order, Authori[tea], anybody?), so I decided, like an adventurous youth, to add to the small collection. This is a modern college AU wherein Anna is being harassed by her anthropology professor (Simcoe) and accidentally runs into a mysterious professor (Hewlett). There's very little Annlett interaction in this first chapter, so bear with me!**

 **Chapter One: Gravity 101**

Anna Strong loathed college. She could tell, with an objective and unbiased eye, that college was not for her. And yet, here she was, sitting in an anthropology class with the edge of sleep lingering just outside her vision and a professor that wouldn't stop staring at her at the front of the class, both of them rivaling for her attention. She pretended to find something incredibly fascinating and looked down at her notebook, scribbling a note to herself.

" _Professor Simcoe is the creepiest teacher I've ever had_ ," she wrote in untidy cursive.

"Annie," came a rough voice that she immediately recognized as Caleb's. "Psst, Annie!"

She turned halfway toward him, widening her eyes as she did so. Professor Simcoe, while apparently having no issues blurring the lines between a professional and personal relationship with students in his class, was nonetheless incredibly strict during the hour and fifteen minutes on Tuesday and Thursday that Anna, Abraham, Caleb, Ben, and approximately twenty other students were compelled to endure his company.

Caleb made a drinking motion with his hand, tipping his thumb toward his mouth while his pinkie remained in the air, professing some sort of fanciness and dignity. Abraham's lips twitched beside him, but his eyes never left his notebook. Anna rolled her eyes and gave him a single nod, prompting him to put his hand down and out of sight of the hawk-eyed Professor Simcoe.

"Miss Strong?" his soft-spoken voice, much more intimidating than the usual boom of someone who had a prefix to their name, caught her in the middle of what was almost a chuckle. She froze, letting the smile melt off her face while she wondered _what on earth_ she could have done this time to warrant his attention. Instead of responding to him, she let her eyes lock onto his, silently allowing him to continue his dialogue. "What can you tell me about the rebel spies during the American Revolutionary War?"

"Sir?" she asked, confused. When had they even made it to the Revolutionary War? She struggled to keep her hand still and not let it flip through the textbook, left vacantly open to a random page on her desk like a paper weight.

"Instead of simply sticking to the rules of etiquette usually prescribed during wartime, the Patriots are most often remembered as the dirty fighters," Simcoe elaborated, each phrase taking him a step closer to Anna's desk. "Why do you think that is?"

"Probably because they were desperate for freedom," she shrugged.

Simcoe seemed to find her answer amusing. "Desperate?" he repeated with an undercurrent of laughter. It reminded Anna of the looming presence of a shark under a surfer. "Why do you choose that word specifically?"

"Well," Anna really _did not_ like college, "because they were the ones trying to upset the status quo. The British were only trying to continue what they thought was effective. I think that warrants the use of 'desperate.'"

"I think the use of 'desperate' is irresponsible," Simcoe said plainly, finally turning away from her and moving on to his next target. "That makes _treason_ sound like something that should be rewarded out of the goodness of our hearts."

"So you don't think the Americans should have fought for freedom?" Caleb piped up.

"If I wanted your opinion, Mr. Brewster, I would have asked for it," Simcoe answered without looking in his direction. "Besides, all the Americans did was create yet another system that would eventually enslave them. Or else why would any of you be here, in introductory anthropology? Because you need a college degree to survive on your meager subsistence of social media, the internet, and Starbucks coffee."

Better coffee than nasty British tea, Anna thought bitterly. But she angled her chin back down to her notebook and pretended to take notes once more, hoping that Simcoe had forgotten about her. The lecture continued for a few more minutes before the inevitable sound of students packing up shook Anna out of her reverie.

She shoved her notebook into her bag and zipped it closed quickly, always fearing the seemingly omniscient gaze of Professor Simcoe. And, as usual, before she was able to clear her desk and make it to the door, where Caleb was waiting for her, Abraham and Ben talking quietly just behind him, Professor Simcoe called her back.

"I have another class to get to," she said quickly, hoping he'd buy the excuse while hope rapidly seeped out of her lungs. Simcoe's eyes took on that momentary look of sarcastic surprise, and she knew he didn't believe her.

"This will only take just a moment," he promised, and Anna felt her face heat up, like it often did when she got anxious. The sweats were starting in her palms, and the hairs that always snuck out of her bun were tickling her neck more prominently than usual. She brushed her clammy hand over her neck and waited for Simcoe to speak.

"What is your major, Miss Strong?" he asked, as if he hadn't asked her this question at least fifteen times already. But, knowing that he controlled her grade, Anna took a deep breath and prepared for another day of harassment.

"I'm undeclared," she replied. Simcoe spent almost every class trying to convince her to become an anthropology major, and if she even thought she was passably good at the subject, she might not scoff so loudly when it was suggested. But, as it was, she was barely passing the class, her D only secured by, she suspected, the increasingly inappropriate crush that her teacher had for her.

"Ahh, yes, the universal answer for all freshmen," he answered with a hint of a smile. Ordinarily, a smile on someone's face might ease Anna's nerves; but on Simcoe, it only amplified them. "Well, do you have any idea what you might like to study?"

"I was thinking law," Anna blurted out quickly, hoping that a subject as drab as law might deter him. Alas, he turned his almost transparent eyebrows to her with a smile that showed more teeth than she ever cared to see.

He walked to the board and erased his notes from their class. "I don't think law would much suit you, Anna," he said, finally using her first name. It brought a shiver to Anna's shoulders. "You're much too soft, unfocused, for a subject like law. You might try something a little more… _lassiez-faire_."

"Are you calling me dumb?" Anna asked, her temper flaring. If she were being honest, her temper with Simcoe was always at a dull simmer. It didn't take much to cause an explosion.

He laughed, the cruel bastard, actually laughed, and turned back to her. "No, though I figure that your question basically confirmed that particular caveat. I was saying that you might try something more artistic than law."

"Like anthropology?" she asked, tilting her head like the thought had just occurred to her. The sarcasm was not lost on Simcoe, whose face melted into a scowl. "Gee, I wonder if anyone's ever suggested that to me before."

"You might reconsider how you speak to a professor, Miss Strong –"

"And you might reconsider how you speak to a student, Professor," Anna huffed, gathering her bag higher on her shoulder. "Your habit of keeping me after class for some discussion about my future is, in my opinion, very inappropriate. You wouldn't want me to speak with the dean about that, would you?"

Simcoe's face, frozen in the act of not taking Anna's threat seriously, darkened significantly, and Anna found herself taking a step back. "And why would the dean believe you, a serial freshman with a failing grade in my class?"

"I'm not failing," Anna insisted, but the glint in Simcoe's eye tightened the nerves in her belly.

"Not yet you aren't," Simcoe said quietly, dangerously. "But the only thing that keeps you above an F is my favor. And if you aren't willing to entertain it, then I see no reason for you to pass. You certainly haven't learned the course material."

Anna clenched her jaw, trying to swallow past the tears that were rising in her eyes. She hated crying; she hated even more that she often cried when frustration took over her. She _would not_ cry here, in front of Simcoe. She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and moved toward the door.

"Miss Strong?" his voice was grating on the very essence of her irritation. Anna squeezed her eyes shut and heaved a great breath through her nose, exhaling quietly through her mouth. She could feel the shakiness of her sigh as she turned to face him. He was holding out the last paper she had turned in, with a big red D on the top.

"Don't make me reconsider this grade," he chided playfully, but the coldness that ran underneath the words stilled the room. She stared at the paper for a moment, gently flapping in his grasp, taunting her. She snatched it from his hand, feeling the paper cut into the crease of her index finger. She ignored the stinging sensation and shoved through the door, her eyes searching for her friends.

They wouldn't be there, she knew. They were already on their way to the Common, where they would find their lunches overpriced and packaged in shining cellophane for their convenience. Anna blinked back the frustrated tears waiting in the wings and cursed when one ran free, sliding down her cheek as she pushed open the door that led outside.

The crowd was always at its worst now; students from every discipline were rushing to get to the classes they were already late for, and others were walking at such a leisurely pace that traffic jams were inevitable. Anna had only taken a few steps when her shoulder caught a man in the arm, knocking them both awry. She stumbled, landing knees first on the concrete. The man, who had to be a professor, she realized with annoyance, had managed to barely maintain his balance, and was looking at her with what she could only describe as disgust.

Quickly, that repugnant facial expression gave way to something more fleeting, and he brushed off his coat with the same hand that he offered to help her up.

"My deepest apologies," his British accent was posh and proper, and Anna's irritation compounded at the sound that reminded her so of the man she had just escaped from. "I was looking at my appointments, and it seems like I didn't – well, obviously I didn't see you, and – what I mean to say – oh, your knee is bleeding," his hand was still extended to help her up, but the more he talked, the less inclined Anna was to taking it.

She winced as she pulled herself up, feeling the blood stick to her denim pants. She could see the dark stain on the knee, the pain stinging much like the tears that she had already started shedding before she had collided with the next nuisance in her increasingly exasperated life.

His hand was _still_ extended, his eyes on her face. "My word, I cannot express – I am so sorry that I ran into you. I ran you over like a – well, rather, like a truck, and that is just not proper. Here, might you let me escort you to the clinic to get your knee cleaned up?"

He bent his arm so he was offering his arm to her, like this was the goddamn _Regency Era_ , and Anna felt her shoulders stiffen. She didn't even like men implying that she couldn't carry heavy boxes or handle her liquor. Having someone offer his arm to her like she _couldn't even walk_ …she took half a step, determined to stride past him without another word, and had to catch his arm as her knee protested greatly at the motion.

He grunted slightly at her sudden weight, but recovered admirably and let her wrap her arm rather awkwardly around his shoulder so he could support her on their short walk to the clinic. His briefcase remained alone and desolate on the sidewalk, but she caught him casting his eyes back to it a couple of times to make sure it was still there.

"I don't believe I have you in any of my classes, do I?" he asked finally, after their silence had extended farther than the length between the forgotten briefcase and its owner. "What is your major?"

"If one more person –" Anna grunted through gritted teeth, "asks me that damn question –"

He looked positively scandalized at her reaction, but cleared his throat and soldiered on. "Well, I'm going to hazard a guess, then. Computer science?" she glared at him. He faltered and tried again. "Engineering?"

"Undeclared," she muttered. "And don't try to sway me to your side."

He chuckled a little under his breath, and Anna felt immediately defensive once more. "My dear, I doubt that if you were not already part of my department that I could sway you to it. It isn't something you _sway_ so much as something you live and breathe." He caught the annoyed look that was clouding her face and immediately tried to amend himself, "That is to say, it's rather a lifestyle instead of a choice."

They had reached the door of the student clinic, and the briefcase was almost out of sight. He guided her to a chair and went to the desk, where the student worker eyed him with practiced wariness. He ignored her and picked up the pen that was chained to the clipboard like it often needed to be reminded of its purpose. "Name?" he asked her, pen poised.

"Anna Strong," she answered, and watched as he scribbled it down, realizing belatedly that he was left-handed.

He gently placed the clipboard down on the counter and crossed the room back to her. "Well, Miss Anna Strong, please accept my dearest apologies for harassing you – well, not really harassing you – what I mean is –"

"You're forgiven, Professor –" she trailed off, hoping he would fill in the blank.

He obliged. "Hewlett," he said, giving her an antiquated bow that quirked the corners of her lips. If Caleb and Abe could see him…

And he was turning away from her, going back to his briefcase, where he had left his dignity and probably a chunk of denim from Anna's jeans. She watched him leave, wondering when her day had gotten so completely ridiculous. She sat there for close to fifteen minutes before she realized that she didn't actually want to sit in a sterile waiting room for two hours for a three minute cleaning job she could do at her own dorm.

She hobbled her way to the Common, where she found Abe and Ben sitting at a table, the remains of their lunch scattered over the surface. She collapsed into the seat, leaning into Abe's shoulder.

"Where have you been?" he asked, his voice half-playful and half-concerned. "Class ended thirty minutes ago."

Anna shrugged, unwilling to relate to her male friends the behavior Simcoe kept slinging at her. She knew both of them would be willing to protect her, but for some reason, she found that notion intolerable. No, she could handle this herself.

"Do either of you accident-prone idiots have band-aids in your dorm?" she asked. "I'm asking for a friend."

Ben shook his head. "Caleb might, though," he intoned after a moment. "He used to use them when he kept cutting himself shaving."

"Another good reason to give it up," Abe acknowledged, throwing his arm around Anna's shoulders. The gesture was so familiar that she welcomed it for a moment, his girlfriend Mary forgotten.

"Why do you need a band-aid?" Ben asked.

Anna gestured down to her knee; Ben, on the other side of the table, could do nothing but listen as Abe tried to pry the story from Anna, which she refused to provide.

"I just ran into someone and I fell," she hedged.

Ben, the one who knew and acknowledged when Anna decided to keep something to herself, gave her a silent but chastising look, to which she shrugged. Finally, he sighed and held out his hand. "Give me your wallet," he said. "I'm going to go swipe you something to eat before the Common shuts down for the afternoon. And then we'll go get you a band-aid."

"My knight in shining armor," Anna answered sarcastically. "And nothing vegetarian or I swear to God, Benjamin –"

He waved her off and veered to the right, out of sight.

"Are you going to come by tonight?" Abe asked as soon as Ben was out of earshot. Anna shrugged his arm off her shoulder and turned toward him, the motion putting some distance between their bodies.

"What about Mary?" she asked quietly, knowing that Mary, the current student government secretary, would have people lurking everywhere. "We can't keep doing this, Abe. I can't."

"Wait, Anna, wait," he protested immediately and vehemently, as he always did. "Look, I know this is hard, but –"

"But what?" Anna prompted when his silence stretched. Apparently Abe hadn't thought out the entire sentence. "What we're doing is wrong, and I can't keep doing it."

"You know why I'm with Mary," Abraham whispered, using the lowered volume to force Anna to get closer to him. "It isn't my choice."

His victimizing always had the same reaction; Anna rolled her eyes and moved away from him. "It's the twenty-first century, Abe. Your father cannot tell you who to date. That's antiquated and absurd. If you want to date me, then date me."

"It isn't that simple."

" _Like hell it isn't_ ," Anna hissed. "Your father may be the provost of the university, but he has no control over _you_."

Ben's large silhouette was coming their way again, and Anna felt the looming presence of a listening ear. She scooted away from Abraham one more time, this time placing her bag between their bodies to force him apart. Ben deposited her wallet on the table, sliding two slices of pizza to her as he did so. Anna gave him a grateful smile and collected one of them, savoring the unhealthy taste of marinara sauce and cheese.

Abraham, no longer able to continue his conversation, left soon after that, dropping a quick kiss on the top of Anna's head, like he often did out of friendship, or so he claimed. Ben watched him with a look that looked a little like disapproval.

"Whatever you two are doing, Mary is going to find out," he warned, swiping a pepperoni off of Anna's pizza. She didn't even try to deny it; Ben always knew. He never told, never tried to trade their secrets for anything that could benefit him, but he always knew. Anna was grateful to have someone that knew everything; without him, she would have gone crazy by now. She gave him a rueful smile, her cheek full of pizza, and chewed pensively before she responded.

"It was only a couple of times," she confessed. "A slip up that kind of turned into a snowball effect-type deal. I told him I want out."

"Ahh," Ben said, leaning back in his chair, letting his long arms fold behind his head. "That's why he left, then."

"I would assume so," Anna agreed. "Now, I believe you owe me a band-aid. I'm pretty sure my jeans are forever welded onto my knee by now."

They didn't talk about Abe after that, and Anna never mentioned the other professor, the one who stumbled over his words more than any freshman she'd ever met. He had kind eyes, she remembered as she tried to ignore the pain that seared through her leg as she tore the jeans from the now dried blood.

Kind eyes but an accent that reminded her of someone with eyes like a shark.

She wouldn't seek him out again. Setauket was a big-enough university anyway, she mused, wincing as she pressed the alcohol pad to the scrape on her knee. There was no reason why they should cross paths again.

"I found band-aids," Ben said triumphantly, emerging from the shared bathroom, nudging the door closed with his foot. "They're small, but you should only need two of them."

She thanked him and pressed the band-aids gently over the wound, feeling his eyes on her as she did. "What?"

"Simcoe is still bothering you, isn't he?" he asked delicately, trying and failing to settle on a tone of voice that wouldn't upset her. She didn't ask how he knew; there was no point. She tried to ignore his question as long as she could, but the gentle pressure of his eyes on her would not abate. Finally, with a long suffering sigh, she nodded her head.

"Why don't you tell someone, Annie?" he asked, kneeling before her so he could look up at her. "Someone will do something."

"No they won't," she protested. "It's fine."

Ben placed his hand gently over hers, and she noticed suddenly that she had been fidgeting with the band-aids on her knee. "It's harassment. We could get him fired."

"And I will fail," she answered. "I can't afford to fail his class, Ben. They'll put me on forced withdrawal. I'll have to go back to Selah."

The mere mention of her husband, if he could even be called a husband, darkened Ben's face. "We aren't going to let that happen," he insisted.

"I just have to make it through this semester," she promised. "I can do that. Let me do that."

Ben retreated from her, realizing with his vast experience of Anna's stubbornness, that there was no way he was going to convince her of anything tonight. He nodded, letting her smooth the band-aid over her cut knee repeatedly, and sat down at his desk to start his homework. When she was ready, she would talk.

 **A/N: Forgive me adding author's notes at the end too, but I did want to clarify a few things; Anna is very much the strong, independent woman we see in the canon; I don't believe that she would immediately bandy about her business, especially to someone like Abe, who she would probably consider a reckless friend when it comes to protecting her. I hope you found everyone to be in character! Thanks for reading. (Oh, and the reason everyone calls her Miss Strong instead of Mrs. Strong is because she is trying to hide the fact that she's married. Also, Selah is a little bit of a bad guy in this fic, but not because I don't like him or his character – he just serves that plot device here.)**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you all for your kind words, reviews, reblogs, etc. The Annlett fandom is so sweet and so encouraging! I hope that I continue to impress or at least create something that you deem worth your time.**

 **Chapter Two: Simplicity, An Advanced Course**

Professor Edmund Hewlett would be hard-pressed to say that he found any place more comforting than his office at Setauket University. A visiting professor from Oxford, he was often uncomfortable and stiff in these new, unfamiliar, very American locations, like coffee shops instead of teashops, and small, shallow museums instead of the deep entombed halls of the museums he was familiar with. He longed for the National Portrait Gallery, and Trafalgar Square. He longed for England.

But, he supposed, his office wasn't too bad. He had covered the one window that shed the harsh American sunlight over his shoulder and onto his left ear with a curtain that softened the sun and made the room comfortably warm without pushing it over the limit of stuffy. His bookshelves, the ones he filled to bursting, cushioned the walls with an extra foot of storage. He had just finished organizing all of them – by subject and then author, of course, and now often spent his few minutes break staring longingly at them, a marvel of organization and knowledge.

He gently placed his Starbucks cup on his coaster, resting beside his laptop. Really, he has promised himself that he wouldn't indulge in that capitalist monster, but after plowing over that poor student, he figured he deserved a pick-me-up.

Unfortunately, Starbucks specialized in overcomplicated coffee concoctions that were more sugar than coffee, and couldn't yet manage to figure out that in tea, the milk _always goes first._ He took one tentative sip before he decided that he probably wouldn't drink it, yet couldn't bring himself to throw the full cup into the trashcan. So he left it by his laptop, festering, a physical reminder that he couldn't yet find his footing here.

He could say with certainty, however, that he preferred being here, even if it wasn't home, than to his previous job. Before he had given himself permission to be a professor, he was a lawyer. Rather, if he were being honest, he was a terrible lawyer. He lacked the stomach for the morally ambiguous jobs, and he was considered of too high a status to demote himself to merely a prosecutor, or a white knight for the greater good.

But he promised himself, and his mother, that he would do something that would make a difference. He had thought, erroneously, he could admit truthfully now, that upholding the law would bring about that change and that validation that he craved so much. But the more time he spent trying to swallow back the bile as he defended another slimy businessman from his just desserts, the more the pit in his stomach grew.

It took him almost five years before he gave up being a lawyer for the much-preferred position of _teaching_ law instead. His family friend Richard Woodhull had asked him to fill a position at his school when their former professor had unexpectedly retired. Edmund's sense of honor had called to him, and he accepted, thinking this would be his penance for taking so long to change his profession.

And a penance it was.

A quiet knock on the doorframe shook Edmund out of his train of thought. Garreth Baker, a graduate teaching assistant, was leaning against it, the tie around his neck already loosened in expectation of the end of the workday. Edmund's own tie was tight around his throat, like it always was until he was in the sanctity of his own home.

"Some of the justice, law, and criminal justice department are going out for some drinks tonight," he said, smiling his kind smile that always made Edmund feel a little less homesick. "Do you want to join?"

Edmund's dismissal was on the tip of his lips before the poor child had even finished his statement. "I don't know if I'd feel comfortable –" he began, but Baker cut him off.

"Well, no offense, Professor Hewlett, but you're never going to feel comfortable if you don't do something that makes you uncomfortable," he shrugged.

Edmund felt an almost sardonic smile tug at his lips. "So the answer to comfort is discomfort? You're going to have to work on that particular argument, counselor."

Baker graced him with a chuckle and a nod that Edmund felt was one of the more familiar and personal moments he'd been blessed with since he got here. "The wording could use a little work, I'll admit, but the principle remains the same. Come out, get to know some of the other faculty; it'll do you some good. You'll feel better."

Edmund felt momentarily offended. "Who says I need to feel better?"

Baker's almost pitying smile was soft and apologetic. "You stick to yourself, you leave as soon as your office hours are over, and hardly any of the other professors even know your name, much less your face. It's hard to be in new place, sir."

Edmund blinked slowly, registering the younger man's words. Had he truly been that obvious? Did the rest of the department see how unhappy he was here? Well, not unhappy, per se, but…he paused in his silent rambling long enough to note with some embarrassment that he stumbled through his thoughts even before he vocalized them before he realized Baker was speaking again.

"Great, we'll ride together," he said, tapping the doorframe happily and escaping before Edmund could protest. He felt anxiousness, as it often did, bloom in his stomach and he knew, with all certainty that he was going to embarrass himself tonight. That inevitable dread always hung over him like a raincloud waiting for the right moment to strike.

His mind turned, once more, to that student he knocked over on his way to his office. A truly regrettable situation, he thought with the faintest of blushes on his high cheekbones. He had been rushing to get something to eat before his office hours began, that way he could be available to any student with questions. And, as usual, he had rushed for no reason. He had run over that poor girl for no reason.

Her eyes had been so large, wide like the gaze of the moon, the lines of her eyelashes smudged just slightly from what he immediately recognized as previously shed tears. He had offered her his hand out of courtesy but also out of a necessity. He had been staring at her for too long, and staring without a reason was not proper. She hadn't taken his hand, but he had left it out for her, like leaving a treat for Santa that he inevitably never took, but left a present anyway.

So what was the present that student left? Anna Strong. Her determination to walk alone, and her unapologetic lean on his arm spoke to contradictions that were hard to decipher, a complicated personality and multifaceted, layered person that would intrigue him for long after she slipped into his long-term memories.

And the way she _snapped_ at him – Edmund smiled to himself. She reminded him, in a way, of his mother; a stony, unapologetic woman who managed to straddle the lines of masculinity and femininity without a problem.

He wished, if only for a moment, that she had been his student, so he could help mold that iron veined woman to be a true marvel in the courtroom. He wished he could be like her; he felt so weak compared to this woman that only spoke a few words to him.

The evening fell faster than he would have liked, and Baker was soon leaning against this doorframe again, mimicking his previous position, a shy smile on his face. Instead of trying to wriggle out of the commitment that had been forced upon him, Edmund gladly stood from his chair and reached up to his collar and loosened his tie. Baker's eyes momentarily widened humorously.

"You're actually going to go?" he asked, disbelief etched in the young lines of his face. Edmund gave him the bravest smile he could muster, knowing that if he didn't, the nervousness boiling in his belly would seep through the lines of his clothes and give him away.

One glass of wine, what could hurt, right?

Unfortunately for Edmund, lawyers, even those who taught the law, did not drink wine. They drank scotch. Disgusting yellow and brown foul smelling liquid that burned down his throat and all the way to his chest. He hated scotch. He didn't understand the appeal at all.

"Come on, Oyster, try not to look like you're drinking rubbing alcohol," Professor Andre said, lifting his glass like he was toasting to him. "This is the best scotch the bar has." John Andre, professor of corporate law, was the charming better-looking foil of Edmund's; he was always calm, relaxed, and thrived in social situations. The students, as well as fellow professors, had no problems doing favors for the blond haired, blue-eyed figure of Adonis, even when he didn't offer them anything in return.

Oyster, Edmund mulled. Because he was withdrawn? He supposed he had earned that nickname. Trying to steel himself, he tossed back the rest of the scotch, regretting it almost as soon as it touched his tongue. This stuff was really horrible. He glanced toward the bar, wishing he could get a glass of red wine.

"Edmund," Richard Woodhull, finally eschewing his silence for the sake of conversation, "how has America been treating you? Finally getting the hang of it?"

Edmund considered the question as Andre chuckled. "As a fellow Englishman, I can say with certainty that acclimating to America takes a lot longer than a few weeks, am I right, Edmund?"

There was his name, instead of a nickname. Edmund felt like he was gathering his footing underneath him. He smiled at the suave Andre, who smoothly motioned for another round for the table while simultaneously pulling a woman that Edmund hoped he knew personally onto his lap.

"Andre is not wrong," he began, and Richard's face fell momentarily. "But it gets a little easier every day. However, what remains just as horrible as when I first got here is Starbucks. I simply do not, that is to say, I cannot drink their tea."

Richard erupted in good-natured laughter that, for some reason, Edmund knew was not directly aimed at him. Something in the timbre of his chuckles clued him in to the source of his amusement, and Edmund found himself smiling along with him. "Well, Edmund, no one drinks Starbucks for the tea. They drink it for the coffee!"

"All the same, sir," Richard waved off the 'sir,' "finding decent tea in this entire country has proven to be a conundrum I cannot solve."

Andre lifted his glass once more, toasting that sentiment, and Edmund took a sip of his own replaced scotch, flinching a little less at the taste. In the silence of the company drinking, Edmund took his chance to glance around their surroundings. They were sitting at a dark bar, at a table rather than the actual raised bar, but the place was relatively empty. According to whispered words from Baker, this place was most frequented by professors and students, though they often ignored each other's presence for the sake of propriety. It was within walking distance from the edge of campus, so college students most frequently occupied the raised bar and the wooden dance floor while the professors took up residence in the booths and tables.

The bell above the door jingled happily and Edmund's eyes immediately rose to the sound, stopping completely at the sight of the same moon eyes that had haunted him for the rest of the day. Anna Strong.

She was flanked on either side by a tall, good-looking boy, her eyes were alight with a smile, and the bartender gave her a wink while pouring her a glass of something that looked like whiskey. She drank it without even the faintest trace of a flinch. She was ease personified, she was laughing with her head thrown back, her bun that had contained her hair gone and her hair long and flowing and shiny, and…

And she was looking right at him.

"Great," Richard's muttered exclamation, spat like an expletive, drew Edmund's eyes back to his table. Richard's eyes were aimed in the same direction that Edmund's had just vacated. Anna had turned away from their table and back to the bar, where the taller of the two men put an arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

Edmund wasn't sure why that gesture spread disappointment through his limbs, but there it was. He took another large gulp of his scotch, ignoring the burn now. It was dulling.

"What is?" Edmund asked Richard, who looked startled that anyone had heard him. His eyes were slightly guilty as he flicked them over to Edmund's curious face.

"Nothing."

Edmund didn't push him, but cleared his throat and stood. Richard's eyes followed him, but he didn't say anything. The sudden silence amplified what felt like mistrust in Richard's eyes. If Edmund was going to be forced to endure loaded silences, he was going to get his red wine, damn it.

As luck would have it, he happened to be leaning against the bar, waiting for the bartender, when the tall man moved from Anna's side and exposed Edmund's position to her. She did a quick double take.

"I thought that was you," she said by way of greeting, taking another swig of her drink.

It took him a moment to realize she was talking to him. "Ahh, yes, well, I don't usually come out to bars – besides this time, obviously, and I, uh – I was uh…I was very surprised to see you as well."

She smirked at him; he was stumbling over every single word that managed to haphazardly tumble out of his mouth. He could feel his face heating up. The bartender finally acknowledged him with a single finger, letting him know he'd be right by.

"I come here all the time," she confided, though it wasn't necessarily a secret. "I'm surprised to see you here with Richard Woodhull."

"You know Richard?" he asked, too surprised to stutter.

"My whole life," she acknowledged. "So I suppose that puts you in the criminal justice department, doesn't it? That was Richard's department before he got promoted to provost."

Edmund, too paranoid to open his mouth again, nodded.

"Oi, Annie dear, get me another beer while I take a leak, huh?" a scruffy, shorter man that had been sitting beside Anna this whole time stood and scooted away from the pair. His eyes flickered over to Edmund for half a moment before he ignored him once more.

"Get it yourself," Anna called back to him before turning back to Edmund.

He opened his mouth to actually say something this time, but the bartender finally decided Edmund was worth his time. "Cabernet, please," he said graciously, and the guy moved away from the bar to pour him a quick glass. He turned his eyes back to Anna Strong, who was watching him out of the corner of her eye.

"You might want to get back to your professor buddies," she said conspiratorially, leaning toward him. "Richard is going to get jealous."

Before he could ask her what she meant, she was being swept out of her seat and toward the dance floor by the tall man, back from wherever he had gone. He watched her as he spun her once, twice and dipped her, her mouth open in laughter.

"How do you know Anna Strong?" Richard's immediate question sent Edmund's eyes back to Anna, who was dancing and talking with the tall man, whose eyes were repeatedly lifting to where Edmund sat.

"I…uh…may have almost run her over this afternoon," Edmund said truthfully.

Richard didn't say anything to that, but his face suggested that he thought she deserved it. Edmund furrowed his brows but sipped his wine, finally at home at least in that respect. He let Andre steer the question back to safer waters, and tried to follow it, but didn't succeed so much as his eyes did in following Anna Strong's journey across the dance floor and back again.

Soon, another man joined the first two that accompanied Anna to the bar, and Richard's face visibly darkened. Even Anna's eyes, alight with giddiness, lost some of its luster. Edmund watched as she grabbed the newcomer by the arm, her head tilting toward the table where Edmund sat. The new man turned toward them and, seeing something that made avoidance impossible, strode over to the table.

"Father," he said simply to Richard, who glared at him. Edmund, between the two of them and unable to leave, took a hearty sip of his wine and tried to ignore the coldness of the gaze father fixed on son.

"What are you doing here Abraham?" Richard asked quietly, his voice hushed but full of a rush of anger that felt like a gust of wind.

Abraham turned back toward Anna. "Ben and Caleb called me."

"But not Anna?" his father pressed, his mouth twisting at the girl's name.

"You asked me to steer clear, and that's what I did," Abraham hissed, "but she's Ben and Caleb's friend too. I can't avoid her forever."

Richard and Abraham fell into silence, and Edmund drained his glass and pushed his chair back, trying to escape from the argument. Unfortunately, they were backed against another group of people who were apparently so wrapped up in their own conversation that Edmund had no hope of freedom.

"I wouldn't get too attached to your friend," Richard finally said. "She's on academic probation already, and if I could hazard a guess, I'd say she won't be here next semester."

Edmund's ears perked up at that. _Academic probation?_

"Are you trying to get her kicked out?" Abraham accused, stepping closer to his father. "That's unethical."

Richard held up his hands. "I'm not trying to do anything. She's doing all of this herself."

"And I suppose you just somehow clairvoyantly know her grades?" Abraham snapped. "Or do you have her teachers reporting directly to you?"

Richard looked momentarily affronted. "It's my duty to keep up with our problem students."

Abraham let out a mirthless laugh that took even Edmund by surprise. "Problem students? She hasn't caused a single problem since she got –"

"And what about that protest?" Richard asked gruffly. "That protest ended in a _riot_!"

"She was a participant, not the organizer," Abraham retorted. "Half of the school was there. Including me."

The woman behind Edmund rose to get a new drink and he took his rapidly closing opportunity to get up and flee, heading straight to the bar once more. Richard and Abraham continued to argue, but with the words muted, Edmund found the exchange much less intolerable.

"Do you only drink red wine?" the voice of Anna Strong put Edmund immediately on edge. He wasn't sure if it was the notion that he knew something about her personal life that he shouldn't be privy to, or if it was because he knew she was the subject of a heated discussion, but he still couldn't find the words to answer her.

She smirked at him, endlessly amused by his inability to communicate when he wasn't running her over in the street, and motioned to the bartender. He turned his back to them and started mixing things together in a silver glass. Just the sight of it put him on edge.

"I like red wine," he said finally as the bartender put a tiny glass in front of him and poured some amber colored liquid in it. Anna took a tiny bottle from her purse and sprinkled some red powder on the top of hers and his and held it up like he was going to toast it and then drink it without asking.

He supposed that's what college students did, but not law professors.

"What is it?" he asked tentatively. She didn't answer, but held up the glass a little higher.

Her dark brown eyes, endless in their swirling mystery, practically sparkled at him. Those were the constellations of someone who was lit from the inside with adrenaline and confidence. She was brave and unforgiving. He was trying to sniff the glass without giving himself away.

He was cautious, over-thinking, neurotic. He was the guy who could never see the forest for the trees. He was the man who saw constellations, but not the individual stars. And maybe there was beauty in simplicity, he thought as he held up the glass, mirroring her pose. Their fingers brushed as they clinked, and he tossed it back.

It tasted like apple pie.

She was grinning at him, her exposed collarbone flushed with the warmth and the alcohol. There was something supremely complicated about her, but there was a simple way that her proud smile (proud, she didn't even _know_ him) that made him feel, for lack of a better word, infinite.


	3. Chapter 3

The sunlight seared Anna's eyes as her long lashes fluttered open, revealing her dark irises to the harsh morning. She groaned and pulled her pillow over her head, yanking some of her hair with her. She shoved it away, annoyed, and tried to settle back into her bed. But her head was pounding, her mouth drier than cotton. Ahh, the hangover, she thought ruefully as she sat up, pulling the sheet around her body with her. Abe was snoring peacefully beside her, his bare back exposed to the sun streaming in from the window.

She wrapped the blanket around her naked body and trudged with heavy feet to the kitchen, where she found Caleb curled up on the floor in front of the sink. His beard looked like it held the crusted remains of beer; his hair wild and tangled around his soft face. She let a small chuckle escape as she reached for a cup and turned on the faucet.

Caleb, startled out of sleep by the sound of water, lurched upward. "Huh, ugh," he muttered expletives and not-quite formed words under his breath as he took in the sight of Anna standing over him, wrapped in a sheet, drinking water. "The hell you doin' up, Annie?"

She shrugged and purposefully spilled a tiny dollop of water on top of his head. He recoiled sharply, like she was pouring gasoline.

"Couldn't go back to sleep," she answered finally, clutching the blanket a little tighter around herself. Caleb noticed her movement and pursed his lips.

"I guess Woody is still here then?"

She didn't answer him but finished her glass of water and refilled it, searching now for a pair of aspirin. If they were going to start talking about Abraham, she needed to get rid of her headache. He seemed to take that as a yes and pulled himself up from the floor. His eyes fell on the microwave, projecting the time.

"Annie, it's only seven in the morning!" he exclaimed, trying to shield his eyes from the unfairness of the situation. "What is wrong with you?"

She didn't answer him, finally succeeding in her search for the aspirin. As Caleb continued to complain, Anna dropped three of the tiny pills onto her hand and tossed them into her mouth, washing them down with her refilled water. She returned to her bedroom, where Abe had hardly shifted since she had been gone. Her tiny apartment, so often filled with Ben, Caleb, and Abe, was a crowded reminder of their childhoods together. Now, that Anna was the only one awake, she felt like she was walking in a mausoleum of their memories.

She started quietly searching for clean clothes in her piles of forgotten laundry, grabbing an old Setauket crew team shirt that was probably once Caleb's and a pair of jeans that weren't torn and bloodstained and slipped them on, braiding her long hair into a single plait that she pulled over one shoulder.

Abe shifted in the bed, the sheet on top of him falling lower, and Anna gave him one more look as she gently closed the door behind her, grabbed her keys from the hook by the door, and left her male friends to sleep off their hangovers.

She lived only a couple of blocks away from the university, and the walk was short, the breeze cool. Anna tried not to think about the night before, where Abe had finally returned to the group red in the face, spitting angry tirades about something Richard had said, and basically told her rather than asked if he could sleep over.

Anna felt shame settle on her shoulders like a heavy weight, but tried not to dwell on it. She and Abe had been best friends their entire childhood and their momentary relationship in high school had never left either of them. But even now, she felt something had shifted, something fundamental, like their own chemical compounds had started to move them apart. It hurt her heart to think about not having Abe as he was in her life, but she couldn't shake the feeling. It lingered like momentary vertigo.

Part of it, she figured, was that weird professor she'd met. She had managed to drink a couple of shots with him. Hewlett? She smiled at the memory. He was so timid, frightened by the drink she offered him, his eyes locked on hers like he was afraid that she was going to poison him.

She felt an uncertain sense of pride when he finally drank it.

That seemed to break a dam within him. They had chatted, as intermittently as possible so that Richard wouldn't get suspicious, every time he came to the bar to get a drink. He told her about his classes, how he wanted to be an astronomer, and she told him that she once wanted to be a musician. After that, she hadn't settled on anything since.

Talking with Edmund Hewlett had been a disconcerting experience; he actually listened to her when she spoke, and responded in accordance to the subject instead of turning it back to himself. She was so used to being only an accessory in conversation – a pretty face to talk _at_ rather than _to,_ that she found herself smiling more often when he was talking to her.

He was a nice guy, she supposed, but exceedingly weird. He found confidence in talking about the stars, in talking about the law, but when she asked him a question about himself, he stumbled over all of his words, his face flushing dark red.

She had kept the conversation away from herself, if only to save herself the trouble. He was a fun conversation partner, but he wouldn't be her friend. He was a professor, and one that was a constant dinner guest of Richard Woodhull. Nice to talk to at the bar. That's it.

But her attentions hadn't been on Abe, and that had rankled him for some reason. He enjoyed being the center of attention, probably his own lingering childhood feelings of inferiority, but his borderline possessiveness had never settled with Anna well. They had fought, though lazily, like they were hardly putting any effort into it.

The sun had risen higher in the sky, winking down at her through the thick clouds that usually shielded early risers from the harshness of New England mornings. She looked up at the clock tower in the center of campus and tried to decipher the time in the old clock face. It stared down at her, mocking her, asking her why she was here this early.

Truth be told, she wasn't so sure either.

"Miss Strong," the voice stopped Anna cold. She turned slowly, trying to hide the fear on her face. If she were truthful, she'd say she didn't succeed. Professor Simcoe was standing at the entrance to the science building, his briefcase in one hand, and a cup of coffee in the other. "What a pleasant surprise."

It wasn't, truly. He crossed the small, university street and came to a halt in front of her. "I never see you here this early," he remarked, his high voice landing gently on her frazzled nerves.

Anna tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. "I don't often come here this early. I was just looking for a walk."

"Oh, perhaps I could walk with you," he answered readily, and Anna almost flinched. "We could discuss your paper."

"But you'll be late for class," Anna said, gesturing to the building. He turned back to it, as if he had forgotten it was there. He chuckled lightly, and Anna knew she was out of good luck.

"I don't have to teach until nine," he remarked. "I have plenty of time to help one of my favorite students." He dropped his hand on her shoulder once, like a patting sensation that he didn't quite complete, and Anna felt her shoulders tense in response. "Shall we?"

She silently groaned, but continued on her walk. He walked beside her in silence, the weight of his eyes on her more often than it was on the sidewalk. Finally, he seemed to deem their walk worthy of conversation. "Have you thought about what you're going to write your next paper on?" he asked, using the pretense of conversation to get even closer to her.

She hadn't thought about his paper at all; in fact, she tried to think very little about his class, but she answered readily all the same. "I thought I would write about the Culper Ring," she answered. "I find the spy tactics fascinating."

"Deceptive little buggers, the early Americans," Simcoe agreed, though Anna was sure that wasn't what she had said. "I suppose you'll have to do some research, then. I could help you."

"Of course," Anna answered, glancing up at the trees passing above them, wondering when this hellish walk would end. Simcoe seemed to realize that Anna wasn't really paying him much attention, because he swiftly changed topics. His hand swept in front of Anna's torso, catching the lanyard she wore around her neck with her keys dangling from it.

"No car keys," he noted simply while Anna tried to calm her own pounding heart. His quick movement was one of precision; a hunter. "I find it curious that you don't live with your husband."

The simple uttering of the word 'husband' halted Anna and tilted her world on its axis. No one knew about Selah, especially here. It had been so long since she thought of that word, of herself in relation to that word, that she felt like she had just been thrown into deep, cold water. Now she had to tread it.

"How did you know about my husband?" she asked, almost choking on the word. It wasn't the right word to use to describe Selah. She was starting to shake, her hands quivering first and the most noticeably.

Simcoe shrugged like it was no big deal. "Nothing is a secret at Setauket University, Miss Strong," he admonished lightly. Anna, with so many things to hide, felt like he was hinting at something else, but what it could be, she couldn't place.

She could feel her whole body thrumming with adrenaline now, like it was preparing to answer the constantly unasked fight or flight question, and she had to force a deep breath through her nose to keep herself steady.

"So why don't you live with your husband?" Simcoe's smile was calm, almost kind. He knew she was getting upset; he would have to be dense not to.

She struggled against the wave of incredulity that was crashing over her, sending her awry. "He's in prison."

"Ahh," Simcoe didn't seem surprised. Anna surveyed the profile of his face, trying to figure out what his game was.

"Miss Strong?"

She let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. Edmund Hewlett was walking toward the pair, his own briefcase in his hand, his shirt buttoned all the way to the top. His eyes raked over Simcoe and settled on Anna, where he seemed to notice immediately the shakes that were racking her body.

"Professor Hewlett," she answered, trying to keep her voice steady.

He stared at her for too long, much too long, and his eyes betrayed his innocence, his own questions. Finally, after a long silence, he cleared his throat.

"Miss Strong, you will be late for our appointment!" he exclaimed, giving Simcoe a momentary glance that looked distinctly dismissive. Anna blinked even as he motioned to the building he was walking to. "You didn't forget, did you?"

Her brain frantically trying to keep up, Anna heard herself say, "Of course not, Professor Hewlett," she quickly stepped up beside him, and he surreptitiously stepped half in front of her, his shoulder shielding her. She relaxed. "So sorry, Professor Simcoe, I must be getting along."

"And what, pray tell, would you have to meet with a law professor about?" Simcoe asked, his eyes never leaving Hewlett. The two men considered each other, sizing the other up. Anna had forced herself not to compare Simcoe to Hewlett, but seeing them standing in front of each other now was a surreal experience. Hewlett existed somewhere far from Simcoe's nightmarish cloud.

Anna hesitated. "Well, I was considering going into law, and my friend Abraham suggested that I speak to Professor Hewlett, so I…well, I did," she said quickly. Hewlett, beside her, hitched his bag a little higher, a show of pride, of victory. "Shall we?" she directed at him. He gave her a single nod and continued on his way, Anna practically trotting beside him.

"Are you alright?" he finally asked after Simcoe had faded from their view. "I'm sorry for butting in, I mean, you looked –"

Anna waved him off, realizing that her hands were still shaking as she did. "No, thank you."

The silence stretched long after that, Hewlett practically fidgeting beside her to say something, anything. She let the quiet ease her stretched nerves. She made it a point not to talk about her husband to anyone who wasn't her close friend when they had gotten married. How Simcoe had known was baffling. And even more sinister, he could tell she lived close to the campus because she didn't have a car. Momentarily, paranoid, Anna considered moving.

Hewlett was still struggling to open the conversation. Finally, she took pity on him when he couldn't seem to find the words to speak.

"Are you really going to your office?" she asked, ending the question in an exhalation that betrayed the continued stress she felt.

He jerked out of his thoughts visibly, letting his eyes fall on her. "Oh. Oh, yes, that is where I am going, but you needn't accompany me if you don't – that is to say – if you don't want to. Our clever ruse is up." His eyes roamed her face, searching for any clue as to what she was feeling. She figured she must be quite an enigma; first so angry, then kind, frightened, and now kind once more.

She felt her lips twitch into a smile, the mention of her husband momentarily forgotten. The way he stumbled over his words when she caught him off guard inspired her to do it more often. She shrugged. "I have nowhere else to be."

He almost literally tripped at her response, and she let laughter fill her, banishing the panic of Simcoe and the self-loathing that Abe brought about. It seemed laughter always snuck up on her quickest when she felt almost lost, frazzled. It was almost hysterical laughter, the one that can dissolve immediately into tears. He let her laugh at him, his face impassive but slightly warm, and led the way to his office.

It was expertly organized, almost cold, but the bookshelves had been arranged with such care that Anna felt love pouring off them. She immediately turned her eyes to them, scanning the titles for something she knew. Nothing. She didn't know anything. Swiftly, her own insecurity was back.

"Who was that man?" Hewlett asked her, setting his briefcase down on his desk and opening it, taking out folders of papers. "And why was he making you so uncomfortable, if you don't mind me asking?"

"That is…" she hesitated, and backpedaled, "no one important. I can handle it."

His eyes rose from his papers and settled on her, fixing her with an almost stern look that reminded her of being scolded, but then his expression softened. "I will respect your wishes," he said simply. "But, before you go, there is something I would like to ask you."

Anna felt that sudden uncertain feeling where a fleeting flirtation becomes too real; had she been too kind to this man she hardly knew? Was he about to presume some sort of control over her like Simcoe did? Like Selah did? She froze, her back to him, her heat turned upward toward the bookshelves.

"This is…going to sound – well, it probably is unethical -," Hewlett seemed to be talking to himself more than he was talking to Anna.

Oh God, he was going to ask her out, wasn't he? Didn't he know he couldn't ask out a student here? Anna felt her cheeks flush dark red, and struggled to banish the blush. He was still trying to find the right words to say, and Anna quickly realized she hadn't been listening.

"but I might as well…Miss Strong, if you are willing, I would like to become your tutor."

Anna, already poised to reject a professor asking her on a date, paused, mouth open. Wait, what? "My tutor?" she asked, her voice quiet. Of course he wasn't going to ask her out. Her disappointment in that fact, a fleeting pang of it, was quickly replaced by her own self-loathing. A professor would never want to date her. She probably wasn't smart enough for them and their stupid books and degrees.

He seemed to sense that she wasn't going to react favorably. "Yes, well…I heard from someone in the faculty that you are, well, how should we say – academic probation –"

"Richard," Anna answered simply, furiously. "He told you that I was on academic probation?"

"Well," Hewlett hesitated. "No…not me, per say, but he did say it in front of me, to his son. Abraham, I think his name is."

Anna exhaled sharply through her nostrils, anger filling her numb limbs. She could feel the rage that the mere mention of Richard Woodhull ignited in her boil to the top and over.

"What I meant was," Hewlett was still talking, "if you are struggling with anything, I only teach two classes, so I have –"

"Why?" Anna asked sharply, crossing her arms.

He halted. "Why what?"

"Why do you want to help me?" she asked again, her voice gaining volume. "I'm not part of your department. You don't even know me. So what's your _interest_?"

She was being cruel now, using that particular word. His cheeks, his impossibly high cheekbones, flushed with it. But she had been so sure that he had been interested in her, at least as a friend. She had relished in the attention, in his quick glances. She shouldn't have; she was leading herself on as much as she was leading him on. But the notion, the mere idea that he was offering to help her pass her classes, like she couldn't manage to do it alone, was hurtful. Insulting, even.

He seemed to be at a loss for how to respond. After watching him struggle, Anna held up her hands to stop him, even though he was nowhere near a coherent response. "Look, with all due respect, Professor Hewlett, you don't know me. At all. And neither does _Dick_ Woodhull." The use of the word jolted Hewlett, who looked scandalized. "I don't need your help. I certainly don't need your goddamn pity."

"I don't –"

" _Do not interrupt me_ ," she warned, and he immediately fell silent. "If I get kicked out of this school because of my grades, then fine. But if I'm going to get kicked out because Woodhull has an issue with me or my father, then…what?"

Hewlett's hand was raised like he was in a classroom.

"Your father?" he questioned.

"My father is dead," Anna clarified. "It's none of your business. If Richard wants to kick me out because of personal issues, I'll give him another riot." She pulled on her braid and glanced around the office, looking for her bag, and realized she came without one.

"Riot?" Hewlett looked more than mildly alarmed now. "Miss Strong, I can't let you –"

A knock at the door stopped Anna from replying. Hewlett called out a meek "come in."

Abraham stuck his head in the door, his eyes stopping on Anna, whose face was still red with anger, tiny hairs poking out of her braid in all directions. "Professor Hewlett?" he asked like he wasn't sure. Hewlett nodded. "Professor Woodhull is asking for you," he said, his eyes still on Anna.

"Of course," Hewlett said. "My apologies, Miss Strong, but it seems that our time is at an end."

"Good," she said quietly. The drop in Hewlett's shoulders told her he heard her. She felt a sting of momentary guilt that she quickly stomped on. He let her leave the office first, closing the door securely behind him. He bade Anna and Abe good-bye and left them standing in front of his office door, too embarrassed to even look at Anna when he departed. She let out a frustrated sigh that seemed to prompt Abe into speaking.

"Why were you talking to Hewlett?" Abe asked.

Anna, unwilling to relay the entire ordeal, simply answered, "He's the one who ran me over yesterday in the Common."

Abe, not even caring that Hewlett wasn't out of earshot, exclaimed, " _That_ guy?"

She could see Hewlett pause in his walk; just enough of a hitch in his step for Anna to notice. "Leave him alone," she admonished Abe, feeling her guilt deepen, as it often did when her fit of rage was over. Abe didn't say anything after that for a while, and Anna was glad. Nothing he could say was going to fix the wretched morning she'd had.

"You left this morning," he said finally, and Anna groaned aloud.

"I'm allowed to leave my apartment when I please," she snapped. "And you aren't staying over anymore." Before Abe could respond, she left him there, walking in the same direction Hewlett was going. She didn't look back.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Quick updates, since I've been bitten by the writing bug lately!**

Chapter Four: Introspection, An Entry Level Class

It was noon; Anna felt like it took all day just to get to the halfway point. She met Ben for lunch, forgoing Caleb's still irritated muttering about waking up too early and Abraham's longing looks and the chastising that she was sure to endure now that she was barring him from her bed. Besides, she was practically bursting to tell someone about Hewlett. Ben, with his tight lips and lack of judgment, seemed like the best choice.

"You _yelled_ at him?" Ben was laughing into his cup of coffee, his hair still a little too rumpled to not be hung over. "You actually yelled at him?" Anna's eyes zeroed in on a stray cowlick that she wanted desperately to pet down, but she resisted. "Come on, the poor guy was only asking to be your tutor."

"You know what, I already regret telling you about him," she grumped, swiping his coffee cup and taking her own long sip. "It's not about the tutoring, exactly –"

Ben smirked at her. "Then what was it? Because I would assume you'd be happy he wasn't asking you out. I mean, unless you _wanted_ to go out with him."

Something in his tone made her narrow her eyes. "What do you mean?" she asked tentatively, trying to decide how she felt about his criticism of Professor Hewlett. After relaying the whole story to him, from their initial collision outside the Common and their conversation at the bar and today, she felt not only even guiltier for yelling at Hewlett, she also felt…vulnerable.

Ben had been in this position before. He held up his hands and leaned back in his chair, the picture of nonchalance. "Nothing. I mean, Annie, if you wanted to date him, what is so wrong with him being your tutor? There's nothing shameful in having someone help you."

"I don't need help," she insisted. "And I certainly don't want to date him."

Ben raised his eyebrows at her over his cup. Anna wanted, so much, to ask him what the look was for, but she was exhausted. The morning had already gone on so long, and she still had two more classes to attend that day. She reached into the little paper bag that Starbucks gave the unfortunate souls who order some of their food and pulled out a piece of lemon cake. Ben watched her eat the piece thoughtfully, as though he knew she had more to say.

She let her eyes focus on something far away. "I'm just…" she sighed heavily. "I'm annoyed that my business is being aired at goddamn faculty meetings at bars. And even more annoyed that Richard thinks he can talk to Abe about my grades."

"So you took it out on the guy who offered to help you?" Ben asked, still smirking. "Sorry, Annie, that's just a misdirection of anger."

"Stop calling me Annie!" she exclaimed. "Who are you, Caleb?"

Ben shrugged. "Abe and his father shouldn't be discussing you, that's true. But there's also no point in getting upset if you're not willing to acknowledge the role you've played here."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, do you try to do better in school?" he asked, "Or are you hoping that you flunk out?"

Anna opened her mouth to protest, but Ben held up his hands. "Wait, let me finish. Your marriage to Selah was rushed, and probably not really what you wanted. You used his arrest and the loss of James as a catalyst to change your life. You came to college at twenty-two years old. You came here feeling like you were too old to start changing your decisions. So did you come here just because your friends were here, or because you truly wanted to have your own career? There's nothing wrong with finding a career outside of college education. You just have to figure out what that career is."

She felt exhaustion weighing her down now more than ever. "I don't know what I want," she muttered.

His hand came to rest on her shoulder reassuringly. "There's nothing wrong with that. But maybe you might want to start looking into it. Because if you decide that it _is_ college, you're running out of time to turn your grades around. And if it isn't…then why waste your time?"

"Where were you last night?" Mary asked, checking for the third time if the poster she'd just hung was straight. "I thought you were coming over."

Abraham shrugged. "I ended up going to the bar with Ben and Caleb, and I lost track of time. I know how you hate to see me drunk."

Mary nodded, her eyebrows raised. Her yellow skirt fluttered around her knees as she twirled around her boyfriend and crossed to the other side of the hallway, pulling tape from under her arm, where she had trapped it against her torso. "Was…was Anna there too?" Her voice betrayed her forced nonchalance, but Abraham heard it.

Abraham hesitated. "Probably before I got there. I didn't see her," he lied.

Mary seemed to take him at his word, but the silence that followed went on too long for Abraham's comfort. He didn't often mention Anna in Mary's presence. It was typical for the girlfriend to resent the ex-girlfriend, but his relationship with Anna was _complicated_. Even more complicated than he originally thought.

Their first "slip-up," as Anna called it, happened after Abraham had a fight with Mary. He had gone to Anna for comfort, which, as he could tell now, was an excuse. He was looking for understanding from a woman he thought he was better suited to. But he missed her; he missed Anna's deep laugh, her big, soft eyes, her rough hands. He missed all of her. Mary, already onto another subject, dropped a kiss onto Abraham's cheek and held out the posters to him.

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked, finally tuning in. Mary pouted at him, sticking out her lower lip only slightly so she wouldn't smudge her lipstick. It wasn't that he didn't like Mary, he did, but she just…wasn't Anna.

"I said I have to go to class," Mary said again, feigning exasperation. "Could you hang those for me?"

"Sure," he smiled at her, and she puckered her lips, asking for a good-bye kiss. He obliged her, a quick peck that made guilt twist his gut, and she sashayed away, pulling her backpack higher on her shoulders. She was everything he should want; she was part of the honors college, polite, popular, beautiful, and intelligent. But she lacked the fundamental wildness that Anna had coursing through her veins. She wasn't spontaneous.

Abe flipped the posters over and surveyed them. It was an invitation to an open forum where the student government would let the student population ask questions. Anything from financial aid to the job market were up for grabs. Mary made Abe attend every semester, and most of the time, fewer than ten people showed up. Even fewer asked questions. It was hard to find a group of people that cared about the details that went into their higher education. As it went, Abe hardly cared to know, and his girlfriend and father were both in the system.

He tucked the posters under his arm and made his way toward the Common, intending on putting the posters up in the political science building, where the future leaders of the country would probably be coerced into attending. They would never turn down an opportunity to debate, after all.

He was just leaving the Common when he spotted a familiar head of messy light brown hair. "Ben!"

Ben paused just as he was about to cross the street and turned to his friend. "Hey, I see you braved going to class today," he said cheerfully. "You look dead tired."

Abraham shrugged. "I had to be at my father's office at 8 a.m. to answer phones and shit, so I basically just brushed my teeth and ran from Anna's place at 7:45 this morning." Ben shook his head, a laugh punctuating the almost dog-like motion, reaffirming what Abe always thought about his friend; that he looked like a friendly golden retriever. "Speaking of which, have you spoken to Anna today?"

Ben's laughter quickly shuttered. Abe raised his eyebrows. "That's a yes."

"Look, whatever is going on between you two is not any of my business," Ben said innocently. "I just serve as a sounding board for whoever needs it."

"So she has been talking to you," Abe confirmed. Ben sighed, and Abe could see him struggling not to roll his eyes. "Look, I just want to know if she told you why she's shutting me out."

Ben's look shifted from exasperation to something akin to pity. "Abe, she's not shutting you out. She's just trying to get her life in order."

"And, what I can't help her with that?"

"No, you can't," Ben insisted. "You're a distraction, you are inviting more problems that she doesn't have time for. What happens when Mary finds out what you're doing?"

Abe rolled his eyes. "She's not going to –"

"Come on, how stupid do you think she is?" Ben exclaimed, finally crossing the street, forcing Abe to follow him. "She's going to find out, if she doesn't already suspect you. You're dating _Mary_ , Abe. She should be the one whose feelings you're considering.

"I do," Abe insisted, but Ben shook his head.

"You aren't. You're completely forgetting that Mary even exists when Anna's around. And if that's so easy, then why are you with Mary? Because she deserves to be treated better than this."

"This has nothing to do with Mary," Abe protested, and Ben gave him a mirthless laugh in return.

"Fine. But when Mary finds out, and she will, that's going to bring hell down on Anna. Is that what you want for her?"

Abe considered the question, turning his eyes up to the sky. "No, I don't." Ben nodded triumphantly and continued down the sidewalk toward another row of buildings. "But I want to be with her," he called after him.

Ben paused and turned back to his friend. "Well, I don't think you're the only one."

There was nothing for Abe to say to that. Ben gave him a shrug at his confused expression and turned his back to him, continuing on his way to class, leaving Abe to dwell on the unexplained statement.

Edmund Hewlett spent most of his day trying to forget the embarrassing implosion that was his morning. After stumbling in a less than stellar manner over his own words with Anna, she had basically told him that he had crossed some sort of line he didn't know existed. He couldn't fault her for being defensive, at least, to a point, but he felt his own defenses rising as well. If he was in a position to help, what was so wrong with accepting it?

He sighed, once again trying to expel the thought from his mind. He scanned the heading of his student's paper for the umpteenth time, trying to remember if he'd actually thought the argument was logical or not. He couldn't remember.

Just as he managed to read past the first page, a quiet knock startled him. He called out a "come in," that was hardly audible and marked on the side of the paper where he'd left off. The professor that he had seen with Anna that morning was standing in the doorway. He was certainly an off-putting character; his curly brown hair cut close to his head, his too wide eyes large and disconcerting. He was a supremely large man, as well, and Edmund found that he wanted to stand up, if only to close the gap in their heights.

"Can I…can I help you?" he asked tentatively, giving in to his impulse and standing, offering the man his hand to shake.

"John Simcoe," the man said, shaking his hand firmly.

"Edmund Hewlett," he replied, trying to ignore the pain in his hand as Simcoe squeezed. He motioned to the chair beside his desk. "Please, sit."

He did, his face holding no malice, and took in the office. Edmund had felt a little self-conscious when he saw Anna do the same thing, but his insecurity lied in hoping she didn't think it was cold, or boring. With Simcoe, he felt almost an instinctive need to defend why he decorated it so.

"Can I help you?" he asked again when Simcoe didn't speak.

Simcoe turned his eyes back to Edmund. "I was hoping I could speak with you about Anna Strong."

Edmund's eyes slid away from the man as he considered the question. "I'm not sure what there is to talk about," he said tentatively.

"Well, I'm her anthropology teacher," Simcoe began, "and I've taken sort of an…interest in her."

Edmund narrowed his eyes at his choice of words. The motion went unnoticed, and Simcoe continued without interruption.

"I've been trying to convince her to choose a major and declare it soon, but she seems to be digging in her heels. And now I hear that she's considering law, but…I must confess, she doesn't seem to be bright enough to be a law student. I'm sure you understand."

He had the nerve to chuckle, the sound high pitched and unnerving, and Edmund almost shivered in spite of himself.

"I'm actually quite sure I don't understand," Edmund said curiously, feeling like he was already pushing invisible boundaries with the man once more. "As far as I can see, Miss Strong –"

"Oh, it's Mrs. Strong," Simcoe corrected. "You didn't know?"

"She's married?" Edmund exclaimed, much more passionately than he meant to. He quickly cleared his throat. "No, no we didn't talk about that."

"Apparently she likes to keep it a secret," Simcoe confided, like they were suddenly best friends. Edmund leaned back in his chair, the better to get away from him.

"As I was saying," Edmund continued, " _Mrs_. Strong has shown to me that she possesses every quality necessary in a pre-law student; she's tenacious, stubborn, and naturally intelligent."

Simcoe chuckled. "I confess, I have yet to see any of those qualities, and I see her twice a week," he said. Edmund found his hackles rising, but tried to quell it. It wasn't his job to defend Anna Strong; it was her own, and her…husband's.

"Is there something specific you wished to talk to me about?" Edmund asked, suddenly wishing to be alone.

Simcoe regarded him carefully, as if trying to decide how far to push him. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't wasting your time."

"No student is a waste of my time," Edmund defended.

The two men sat in uncomfortable silence for a long moment, both trying to figure out what the other was trying to accomplish. Edmund was starting to understand why Anna had looked so terribly frightened when he spotted her walking with Simcoe this morning. How horrifying must it be to face this man twice a week, and in a position of power, no less.

"Well, I'm glad we cleared that up," Simcoe said finally, standing up and brushing off his slacks like he had managed to somehow dirty them without moving from his seat.

"Of course," Edmund said tonelessly, motioning to the door. Simcoe gave him one last look before he closed the door behind him, leaving Edmund alone to ponder what the hell just happened.

The next morning, Anna sat in Simcoe's class, her head buried in her notebook. She had tried to take notes, she really had, but his class had been particularly fast-paced, and he hadn't put any lecture points on the board, so within five minutes, she had resorted to intricate doodling in the margins of her notes.

"Alright, seeing as we have a few minutes left, let's take out a sheet of paper for a pop quiz," Simcoe said gleefully, his eyes practically shining with the opportunity to give students yet another failing grade.

Anna groaned and turned to a blank sheet of paper, and kept her pen poised over it.

"When was the turning point of the American Revolution, and why did it turn the tide of battle?"

The flurry of scribbling from the rest of the class felt like whispers of judgment. When was that again? It was…Yorktown? Monmouth? She stared blankly at the paper. Simcoe had moved on to the next question.

"Why did the French offer aid to the Americans?"

She felt her hand twitch, but could offer no answer. Caleb, beside her, was humming something under his breath while he scribbled, and Anna felt her cheeks warm. She was the only one in the classroom that wasn't writing something. How long had she tuned out? How much had she missed?

She could feel panic starting to close in on all sides. She had intended on passing this class without having to stomach Simcoe's advances, pass on her own merit, but she was already failing a simple pop quiz.

"Explain why the title "Common Sense" was provocative and tell me what kind of propaganda it was."

She had to leave. She wanted to leave. She glanced up and Simcoe was staring right at her, a smile perched daintily on his lips. His eyes fell toward her still blank paper, and Anna knew she couldn't get up and leave now. She felt anxiety stick her to the chair as her panic continued to build.

She was _failing_.

If she hated college so much, why would failing bother her so completely? She should be happy she was about to be outside this unnecessary system that asked for far too much money for little to no immediate gain. She should be rejoicing, deciding what she was going to do when this was over. But she was panicking. She wanted to do well. She couldn't say why, or what she wanted to accomplish, but she didn't want to fail.

The rest of the class lurched with a solid movement and started handing in their quizzes, some with a few sentences, others with full paragraphs of developed answers. Anna shouldered her bag and turned in her blank paper, with her name scrawled across the top, and lowered her head into the crowd and ducked out into the hallway before Simcoe could catch her.

Edmund loved libraries. He was often flabbergasted now at the amount of people who stayed away from the books and immersed themselves in their computers, but he found the smell, the atmosphere, and being surrounded by so much knowledge comforting. He allowed himself a short reprieve of his grading and decided to tour the library. He hadn't even visited since he started working at Setauket.

It was a small, modest library, especially for a university. It was three floors, poorly designed, and it had elevators that often stopped and hung precariously in between floors for an interlude that was much too long for his comfort.

He found the section he was looking for; a small non-fiction section in the back corner of the third floor where he could find biographies and autobiographies. He loved reading about the lives of people that came before him. There was so much truth there, hidden between the words, that even the lies were quickly dissolved before him. It was a calming read, nothing too terribly exciting, like fiction that sought to put you through a roller coaster.

He had just chosen a biography (Mary, Queen of Scots) when he heard a quiet sniff from the corner of the room. He paused, his hand still extended to pull the book off the shelf, when the sniff came again, louder, followed by a quiet sob.

He abandoned the book and went in search of the noise. Around the stacks were desks with dividers between them so students could work in limited isolation in peace. Sitting at one of them, with her back to him, was Anna Strong.

She was still wearing that crew shirt that made Edmund want to ask where she'd gotten it, and her hair had fallen out of the braid it had been in when he saw her last. But her shoulders were shaking with her quiet cries, and, as he watched, she scribbled something on her paper and crossed it out again.

He didn't want to say anything – he figured she wouldn't want to see him here anyway, and the notion that she was married was constantly being screamed into every corner of his brain. He decided quickly that he was just going to grab the book and leave. He turned around to do just that, and his briefcase – the damned wretch – fell from his shoulder and landed in the crook of his elbow, making quite a racket.

Anna turned around in alarm, wiping her eyes hastily. "Of course," she breathed. "Of course it would be you."

Edmund, knowing that his face was bright red, shrugged. "I just came here for a book. I'll leave you to your studies momentarily."

He turned away from her again, already deciding that he wasn't going to comment on her tears, and heard her sniff again. He went back to the shelf and grabbed the biography he had been eyeballing, and when he turned around to make his exit, Anna was turned completely toward him.

"I'm sorry that I kind of shouted at you this morning," she said quickly, her voice thick with her tears. Edmund felt, surprisingly, no residual embarrassment or anger at the recollection of their previous conversation. He supposed that seeing her actually cry made it less important. She sniffed again, and Edmund wished forcibly that he had a handkerchief to offer her. Never again would he let Andre tell him handkerchiefs were out of style. They were necessary. "I mean, I'm not sorry I got angry, because my grades are none of your business –"

"Apology accepted," he said quickly, unwilling to dive back into a conversation he'd already thought too much about. "Do you mind…I mean," he stumbled, as he usually did. He took a deep breath and soldiered on. "Do you want me to look at what you're working on?"

She glanced back at her desk, covered in torn out pieces of paper from her anthropology essay, and shook her head. "It's all garbage anyway," she said ruefully.

"Well, maybe I can help," he offered. "If you want me to, that is." He held up his hands like she was pointing a gun at him.

She gave him a watery smile that actually warmed him, and gathered the papers. "I just…I don't know what I'm trying to say," she said, handing them to him.

He nodded understandingly and took the pages, sitting on the seat beside her. He scanned through them quickly, holding out his hand for her pen. She gladly handed it over, and he started correcting grammar, spelling, and organizational issues.

She was right; she had no idea what she was trying to say. She had a working knowledge of the subject matter, as far as Edmund could tell, but no real way to string it together. It was like having someone write an academic essay on their hobby without letting them do research. She watched him intently, flinching whenever he made a sound, whenever he crossed something out.

"This isn't me being mean," he said quietly as she continued to stare at him. "Most of this will help you in the long run. I hope you don't think I'm being mean."

"I was pretty mean to you this morning, so I think I've earned it," she said with a slight smile.

He stacked the papers up when he was finished with them, handing them back to her with a smile. "Okay then. Time to try again."

He wasn't sure where to go from there, so he pulled his briefcase strap higher on his shoulder and stood, ready to leave before she could decide she'd made a mistake. He gave her one more smile before he started to leave.

"Same time tomorrow?" she called after him.

He felt hope when he saw her smile. "Tomorrow," he confirmed.


	5. Chapter 5

"Say, Tall-boy," Caleb sipped his beer and stared at the glass. "Where's Annie?" He let the question hang in the air for a few moments before he turned to Ben, who shrugged. Abraham, on the other side of Ben, cocked his head toward him. "I haven't seen her since Simcoe's class today, and she skipped out quick."

"Probably at her apartment," Ben answered, pointedly ignoring Abraham's raised eyebrows. "I haven't seen her since this morning."

"So tell me why we're here again?" Caleb motioned to the bar, which was full to bursting on Thursday night, widely proclaimed as "College Night." The dance floor was a writhing mass of bodies that seemed to move as a collective group rather than several individuals. The blackboard behind the bar, instead of holding the few regular specials, was adorned with pink and green chalk, all of which loudly offered up mixed drinks at discounted prices.

Caleb loathed College Night, mostly because it offered him too many opportunities to get into mischief that he probably couldn't talk his way out of. Ben wasn't keen on it either; he was only social with very select people, and faceless sorority sisters and fraternity brothers did not fit his bill.

"Ask Abe," Ben said. Caleb lowered his head closer to the bar, perilously close to the mouth of his bottle of beer, and pursed his lips at the aforementioned friend.

"Abe?" he asked.

The music had chosen to swell at that particular moment; the crowds on the dance floor cheered in appreciation. Abraham had to wait for a long moment before he could answer.

"I just needed a drink," he defended. "It was a…rough day."

Ben awkwardly shifted in his chair, a movement Caleb caught.

"You two need to punch each other to get it out of your systems?" he asked with a trace of laughter in his voice. "Because I hate to say it, but that will be the worst fight I've ever witnessed. And I was there when Annie punched Ben."

The mention of Anna's name sent a wince over Abraham's face, but Caleb was in the middle of a large gulp of his now lukewarm beer, and Ben was the only one that saw it. He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for his friend, but instead of voicing it, took another sip of his beer.

"We don't need to punch each other," Ben replied, his voice a little sharp.

"Well sitting here staring into our drinks is fucking boring," Caleb remarked into the silence. "So are we going to get pissed or are we going to just talk about our feelings?"

Neither of the others answered him, and after staring intermittently at them both, Caleb groaned and motioned to the bartender. "Can we get three shots of tequila here?" He waited for the other two to protest, to say something, but the silence stretched on. "Okay…" Caleb shook his head and held out his hand eagerly for the shot.

"Abraham!" the feminine voice cut through the men's tension, and Abraham, who had just filled his mouth full of tequila, froze, his lips pursed comically in the act of struggling not to spit out the drink.

Mary, still in her flowing yellow skirt, this time with a white tank top and a pair of truly tiny pink sneakers, plopped down on the seat beside him. "I've been looking for you everywhere," she said, kissing him on the cheek. Abraham swallowed his shot, his throat protesting.

"Have you?" he asked. Ben, beside him, shifted uncomfortably.

"Did you hang up those posters?" she asked, motioning at the same time to the bartender. "White wine," she told him and turned her attention back to her boyfriend.

He nodded at her. "In the political science building."

She gave him an approving smile and sipped her wine. "Caleb, Ben. Nice to see you."

Caleb, who was already lining up his next shot, waved his hand at her without even looking up. Ben gave her a smile that looked and felt forced. She gave them an uneasy smile and turned back to her boyfriend. "Where's Anna?"

"Trying to catch me in a lie?" Abraham asked.

Mary's face, so pale and delicate, hardened. "It was just a question, though I wonder why your response is so waspish."

Abraham didn't respond, and the longer the silence between them stretched, the more Mary seemed to understand that she had walked in on something that wasn't meant to be seen. She considered her boyfriend's face, then Ben's, and Caleb's, before clucking quietly to herself and nodding.

"Well, fine. If that's the way you want to be," she said quietly, her eyes betraying only a hint of future tears. She slid off the chair and tucked it gently underneath the bar, scooped up her glass of wine, and moved toward the tables. On College Night, hardly any tables were occupied by faculty; most were used as holding tables for purses, jackets, and the like.

"That was unnecessary," Ben remarked quietly.

Abraham grunted something unintelligible. Ben ignored him and turned on his stool, deciding to lean against the wood of the bar while surveying the rest of the patrons. Caleb soon joined him.

"Abe…" Caleb said after a long bout of silence. "What's Mary doing?"

With a heavy, impatient sigh, Abe turned on his stool. Mary, who had managed to find a few of her friends from student government, had since moved from her original corner table to one close to the dance floor.

"Is she talking to Robert Townsend?" Caleb asked.

Robert Townsend, with his pressed shirt and khaki pants, was indeed leaning close to Mary, saying something quietly to her. His head was lowered slightly beneath hers, so he had to look up through his long eyelashes at her. She was grinning devilishly at him, all traces of her former annoyance gone.

"Of course she is," Abraham grumbled.

He turned away, back to the bar, and ordered another drink. Ben and Caleb continued to watch, occasionally exchanging significant looks when Mary lowered her hand to Robert's arm, and again when he stood and offered her his hand to dance.

"You're not going to do anything?" Caleb finally asked.

Abraham, instead of answering, tossed a twenty onto the bar and pushed the stool back, landing unsteadily on his feet, and left, letting the door to the bar slam closed behind him.

1:00 a.m. Anna stared mutinously at the clock as it continued, against her will, to tick the time away, and turned back to her anthropology paper. Her decision to let Hewlett look at it had been a reckless one, and one she almost immediately regretted when he held his hand out for her pen, but she couldn't deny the powerful feeling it gave her when she realized that she was following what he was saying.

His notes, small ones, scribbled in his neat hand, said things like "how does this contribute to your thesis?" and "maybe this point fits better over here?" and she smirked against her will, because he was _right._

She was being proactive again; she was accomplishing something, and finally, she knew she was going in the right direction. She aggressively scratched out a sentence and added another, feeling the subliminal appreciation that progress gave her. She would finish her rough draft tonight, type it out before class tomorrow, and give Hewlett a typed version of it tomorrow evening.

Three loud knocks shook her from her train of thought, and she cursed quietly. She made a quick note and put her pen down, moving toward the door.

"What, Caleb, are you looking to sleep in the kitchen again?" she laughed as she opened the door. Her laughter immediately halted.

Abraham was standing in her doorway, his hair messy and disheveled, his eyes red around the rims. Anna immediately closed the door halfway, closing off the open space that her body did not fill.

"What do you want?" she asked firmly, trying to ignore the way he was looking at her, like he was trying to drink her in. He glanced at the door, like he was hoping his eyes could open it, but she held it tighter. "Abe."

"I don't know what I want," he rasped, his voice rough from alcohol. "But I want to find out what I want with you."

She grimaced. While not an unexpected answer, she still didn't feel equipped to respond to his statement, especially since Abe was drunk. "Abe…"

"You're my oldest friend," he pleaded.

"I can still be your friend," she replied easily. "That isn't a problem. The problem is…everything else."

He blinked, the movement taking his gaze down and away from her. She let him sit in silence for a while before she sighed. "Abraham, I'm busy. Is there something else you wanted?"

"I came all this way," he protested. "And you're not even going to let me in?"

She furrowed her brows. "I thought I was very clear this morning."

The look he gave her could only be described as betrayed. "You're just going to let me walk home drunk?" he asked, the hard edge coming back to his voice. "After I walked all the way here from the bar?"

She felt herself waver, but spoke before she could second-guess herself. This was the kind of Abe she didn't like; he handed you guilt with the same hand that he offered out of love or friendship. "I'm glad you didn't drive, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I don't want you spending the night anymore. I already said it; I don't know how much clearer I can be."

His hand landed on the door heavily and Anna flinched sharply. He leaned his weight on it, and she felt her arm start to struggle against it. She looked up at him and his eyes met hers; she saw only determination in them. "Abe," she warned. "Don't."

He continued to lean on the door until she was forced to give way, the door opening wide and slamming hard against the wall. He stumbled in, his feet landing, for the first time that night, on the carpet. She closed the door, her jaw clenched, and left it unlocked. He watched her, waiting for her to speak. When she didn't, he followed her into the living room.

"What…what is this?" he motioned to her anthropology papers, spread out over her tiny table. "Homework?" he laughed like the notion was preposterous. His movements were sluggish, heavy, the lead in his arms making him move slower than usual.

She sighed heavily through her nose and, instead of sitting down like she had originally planned, reached for Abraham. He eagerly responded, his hands resting on her neck. Instead of letting him pull her in for a kiss, her hands immediately reached for his pants, where she quickly rummaged through his front pocket and pulled out his phone.

"What…?" his confusion only spurred her to move even faster. With his phone in her hand, she quickly shoved Abraham away from her and onto the couch, where his equilibrium prevented him from bouncing immediately back up.

She had to scroll farther than she wanted to find Mary's number. She pressed her thumb to it, willing it to load faster.

"Anna, what are you doing?" he asked, finally managing to get up. "Shit, my head."

"Yeah, you might need a glass of water," Anna threw over her shoulder as she quickly texted a message to Mary. "Here, let me get it."

He leaned back onto the couch, content now that Anna's displeasure with him seemed to have fizzled out. She rummaged more than she needed to in the kitchen, pretending like she couldn't find a clean glass to put the water in. She tapped her fingers against the counter as she turned on the faucet, the cup filling quickly. Finally, as she was turning it off, the phone lit up with a response.

She felt stress leak from her shoulders.

She gave him the water, watching carefully as he struggled not to spill it on himself. She felt a sneer playing at the corner of her lips and turned away from him and back to her homework before he could see it. She went back to it, her pen tapping idly on the corner of the table while she read Hewlett's comments.

"Your point isn't clear here. Try to find new words to use."

She pursed her lips and considered the sentence he had marked, her lips tracing the words silently. She had just started to rewrite it when Abraham spoke up behind her.

"What are you doing?"

She sighed. "Homework."

He chuckled quietly. "Homework," he repeated under his breath, the word an expletive on his lips. "So you're just going to ignore me?"

Anna did not respond, but continued to struggle through her sentence, finding that creating a coherent one was even more difficult when her concentration was constantly broken. She sighed and scratched it out again.

"Anna –"

"Abraham," she snapped. "I am busy. I told you I was busy. Now you can either sit there in silence while I work, or you can leave."

She could hear him getting up from the couch. She closed her eyes and willed him not to come near her – alas, her prayers went unanswered and his hands landed on her shoulders, kneading at the knots he always found there. Her sigh, borne more out of exasperation than pleasure, only spurred him on.

She tightened the muscles of her shoulders almost subconsciously, and Abraham laughed, his hand slipping in his drunken clumsiness.

"Why are you always so tense?" he asked.

She shrugged his hands off, tensing even harder when his hands went immediately back to where they were before. "I'm tense because you won't stop touching me," she exclaimed, throwing his hands off again. "I told you. I'm busy."

"Why are you acting like this?" he snapped.

A quiet knock at the door brought another groan to Anna's lips. "Come in," she called, watching Abraham's face closely as their visitor opened the door.

"I came as soon as I got your message," Mary said, moving immediately toward her boyfriend. Another tall man, one Anna recognized, moved in behind her.

"Robert," Anna said, giving the newcomer a nod. Abraham's face hardened at the other man, but he barely spared him a glance before he turned back to Anna .

"You called Mary?" he whispered, betrayed.

"I told you to go home," Anna replied, making sure that Mary could hear every word she said. "You didn't want to go because you were drunk, and seeing as I am without a car, I let your girlfriend know so she could collect you. I believe that warrants a 'thank you.'"

He narrowed his eyes at her, and Anna forced herself to smile. "You're welcome," she said to him, patting him on the shoulder.

Mary gave her an almost apologetic smile as she guided Abraham to the door. Anna followed them, if only to make sure the door was locked when they left.

"Anna," Mary said as Abraham started down the apartment's stairs with Robert. "Thank you for messaging me. And…I'm sorry that…that he came here."

She moved to leave, seemingly embarrassed by the conversation, and Anna quickly grabbed her wrist. "I told him not to come here," she said. "I know that…I know that you don't like me very much, and I don't blame you," she held up her hand as Mary opened her mouth to interrupt her. "Abraham has been my friend, but I do want you to know that. I told him not to come here anymore."

Mary's eyes shot up to her at her last word. "Has he been coming here?" she asked.

Anna didn't have to answer. Mary nodded at her once and let her eyes shift somewhere else. Quietly, demurely as ever, she left.

Anna made it to their library spot first the next day, nervously rolling her anthropology paper between her hands. It had taken her a long time to get to sleep the night before, and even longer for her to write out the corrections that Hewlett had marked.

She folded the papers flat again, grimacing as the corners curled up, a signal of her anxiety.

"I take it you have something new to show me," his voice was quiet, almost a whisper, but she jumped regardless.

"Ahh, forgive me," he apologized quickly, but his apology couldn't banish the smile on his face. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Anna shifted from her chair to the one beside it, against the wall, and offered her vacated seat to Hewlett, who took it. She placed the papers in front of him, but he watched her instead. A crease of concern sent a wrinkle across his forehead.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "You look…"

"Tired? Stressed?" she chuckled. "Yes, I am. Alright, that is."

He seemed to find amusement in her stumbling, and suddenly, she understood how he must feel when she smiled at his own stuttering. She felt a blush take over her face, and instead of pointing it out, Hewlett turned to her paper and picked it up, flattening the corner.

When he held out his hand for her pen, Anna had one ready. Their fingers brushed as she passed it on, and in the fluorescent light of the library, she caught the blush that rose on Hewlett's cheeks.

They sat in silence while he read, occasionally making quiet sounds of approval or disapproval. The sound of his pen scratching on the paper soothed Anna, and she found herself drifting off to sleep. It was a sound of comfort, of progress, but also of criticism, and assistance. It soothed her, knowing that she was finally taking an active role in her life. She had spent so long being a passenger in her own destiny that something as simple as a tutor felt like she was putting her life back in order.

 _Selah never came home on time anymore, Anna reflected darkly as she shifted in their bed. His shift at the bar ended at 2 a.m., and it was close to four, and there had been no sign of him. She turned toward the empty side of the bed and reached for his pillow, clutching it tightly against her abdomen, where her stomach should have grown. She let her hand come to rest on the fluffiest part of the pillow, where she wished her stomach had been allowed to extend. But no, James had been taken from her and Selah, before she'd ever had a chance to see his face, to hear his voice. And Selah…Selah seemed to find comfort in taking himself away from Anna as often as he could._

 _The first sob that shook her body felt like the beginning of a thunderstorm, and she couldn't stop the storm that slowly sapped the strength of her body until she drifted into a restless sleep._

Anna felt her eyes flicker open, her surroundings confusing her at first. She was…in the library, and her head was resting on someone's shoulder.

"I knew you were tired," Hewlett's voice startled her, and she quickly sat up straight, wiping the sleep from her eyes. "Don't worry, you drifted off for only a few moments."

"I'm…I'm sorry," she said, trying to shake the melancholy that hung around her. "I just…had a long night."

"I can tell," he said, and the comfort in his voice banished her shame. "Your paper is much improved."

When she looked up, he was looking at her with a smile that filled his eyes to the brim, and she found herself smiling in return. "Go home and rest. Tomorrow, we will find the sources that will back up your argument. And we can discuss your other classes as well, if you would like for me to do the same thing with them."

She gathered up her paper, beaming with pride when she noticed far fewer marks on this draft than the last one. Her smile seemed to please him – his grin matched hers when she looked up.

"If you want, I can give you a ride back to wherever you live," Hewlett offered, grabbing his briefcase, and she could hear the jingle of car keys. "I think it would be far from gentlemanly to let you walk home in the dark."

Simcoe's own assertion as to her living arrangements came back to her suddenly. "How did you –?"

He pointed at the lanyard around her neck. "No car key."

She took it in her hand and pulled nervously. "Oh."

He furrowed his brows. "I didn't mean…that is, I didn't mean to startle you," he said, his face morphing from his previous hopeful to worried. "I just…I assumed it would be a chore to walk home if you are indeed as tired as you seem to be."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Professor Hewlett –"

"Edmund, please," he corrected. "At least when we're alone."

There was something forbidden about having his first name on her lips; something even more forbidden about knowing that she had to keep his name a secret. She smiled slightly, the notion thrilling.

"Edmund, then," she said slowly, and his eyes _shined_ at her. "I would be extremely grateful for a ride home."


	6. Chapter 6

Anna felt the pressure of bad decisions settle heavily upon her. She trudged up the stairs to her apartment, listening intently for the sound of Hewlett's – Edmund's, she corrected herself – footsteps following behind her. She wasn't sure what prompted her to invite him inside. Perhaps it was the way his eyes shined when she used his first name that did her in. Maybe it was just…the way he made her feel – like she was important, and smart, and worth listening to.

She fumbled with the lock, feeling unexplainable nerves tighten her muscles, making even simple motor skills a hazard. He still hadn't said anything, content to follow silently behind her. Perhaps he was worried, as she was, that anything he said would break this tentative spell that neither of them wanted to name. She finally swung the door open, and realized as she did so that the living room light was on.

She hadn't left it that way this morning.

Anna must have made some sound, because Edmund's presence tightened in behind her; she could almost feel his chest against her back as she froze in the doorway. Her own hand rose from her side and came to rest on Edmund's arm, tightening on the material of his jacket.

"Nice of you to finally come home," Abraham was sitting in the living room, his back to Anna. She exhaled loudly, realizing suddenly that Abraham had been in possession of a spare key since she started living in this apartment. "I've been here for hours."

She felt like she was walking into a war zone, stepping into her own apartment with Edmund behind her. She cast a glance back at him, shrugging as his eyes questioned the situation.

Abraham finally turned around, catching sight of someone standing beside Anna. He narrowed his eyes, then raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Professor Hewlett?"

Edmund sighed. "Evening, Mr. Woodhull."

Abraham turned his gaze to Anna. He struggled with his words, his lips working silently around different expletives that he didn't settle on. Finally he managed a strangled, "What the hell?"

"Professor Hewlett," she addressed Edmund carefully, "would you mind waiting for me in my…room?" she hesitated over the word, but as she frantically struggled to come up with another solution, the only other one was for him to leave, and she didn't want him to leave yet.

"Your room?" he repeated.

She turned her eyes to him. "Straight down the hall. On the left."

He gulped, his Adam's apple working hard to manage it, and nodded. She watched him go down the hallway, his curious eyes lingering on the photographs pinned to the wall with thumbtacks and the one Game of Thrones poster she'd added to the door to her room. The decision struck her as incredibly childish now. He cast one more glance over his shoulder as he closed the bedroom door behind him, and Anna hoped she hadn't left something like her underwear on the floor.

Just the thought made her want to throw herself down the stairs in embarrassment.

But she couldn't; Abraham was still staring at her like she'd brought in a bloody corpse instead of a professor. She closed the front door and locked it, hanging her apartment key on the hook by the door.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Abraham asked again, trying to keep his voice low so Edmund couldn't hear him but not really succeeding.

Anna gaped at him incredulously. "Do you really have the nerve to ask that when you're the one who let yourself into my apartment without asking me first?"

He held out his arms wide, like he was claiming the space. The movement infuriated her. "Anna, I came here to talk to you. About what happened last night."

She snorted and dropped her bag in the entry by the small pile of her shoes that she often discarded there and forgot about. "I'm surprised you even remember last night."

He groaned. "Anna, please, could we get serious for a second?"

"Oh, but when I want to get serious, I'm being rude?" she exclaimed. "I'm putting a damper on your party? I'm offending you? And when I come home, to my apartment, and see you in here, even after I expressly told you I didn't want you to come here anymore, I'm still the one that needs to be chastised?" she didn't bother lowering her voice this time. She didn't care if Edmund heard her. "Why don't _you_ get serious for once?"

"I _am_ serious," he protested, moving toward her. She immediately retreated, holding up her hands like he was pointing a gun at her. "I came here for a serious conversation, and you have…you brought Professor Hewlett here?"

She growled, low in her throat. "I don't owe you any sort of explanation."

"It's _unethical_."

"So is your father telling you about my academic status, but are you going to report him?" she asked, tilting her head like she really wanted to know the answer. "Of course you aren't; because you have no problem bending or breaking the rules when it applies to you."

"Mary broke up with me," he quickly changed tactics, realizing that she wasn't going to capitulate to his original plan of action. "She knows…about us."

Anna truly wasn't surprised; her tone reflected it. "I'm not sure what that has to do with me."

He moved toward her again, this time taking her hands in his own. "Anna, please. You know that I love you."

His eyes were full of it, brimming with the love he professed, and she believed him. He had been her best friend since they were both children – he was the man that comforted her when she lost James, when Selah went to jail. He was the man who always stood by her. She had figured that they would fall back together eventually, but not now.

"I love you too," she admitted quietly. "But I can't be with you."

"Can't or won't?" he asked, defeat seeping through his voice. "Because it feels like you're denying something that you want."

She pulled her hands away from him. "Stop telling me how to feel! You don't know what I'm dealing with, or what I want. All you know is that it doesn't line up with what you want. Now, I asked you not to come here anymore, and I stand by it. Go."

"But –"

"Abe."

"So I can't be here, but Hewlett can?" he asked, lowering his voice again.

She sighed. "He's tutoring me, okay?" she said. "He's helping me pass my classes, so yes, he can be here. And I'd appreciate it if you kept that to yourself."

He shook his head at her and stepped around her, grabbing his jacket and tossing it over his shoulder recklessly. Anna watched him go, and as he put his hand on the doorknob, she called out, "And leave my key."

She hid the key when he finally left, putting it underneath the cushions of her couch, and went to find Edmund. He was sitting, as awkwardly as ever, at the small chair that she had left in her bedroom by pure accident. His briefcase was sitting in his lap.

Anna was suddenly very aware that her room was a mess. Luckily, most of her clothes had been put away the day before, but her bed was a tangle of sheets and blankets, and she could see her turtle pillow pet sticking out from under the bed. A blush colored her cheeks. This was a different atmosphere than the library; it felt decidedly more intimate to be looking at Edmund in the dim light of her lamp in her bedroom, the shadows playing over his face in a way that clouded his expressions but not his feelings. She could see that he felt the stark difference of their power dynamic now. He was in the her lion's den, and for the first time, she had power, if only the power that was given to the vulnerable.

It was surprisingly not as awkward as she'd expected it to be, seeing him sitting in her bedroom like he belonged there. She felt like they'd been friends for a long time already, their friendship unbothered by simple things like her turtle Horseradish's wrinkled face judging them from under her bed or the fact that she was the type of woman who never made her bed.

"Sorry about that," she said quietly, and he brought his eyes up to her.

"Don't be," he reassured her, standing from his seat. "Abraham is your friend."

She let out a mirthless laugh that made him look, if possible, even more confused. "Yeah, sure."

"Well, he did have a key to your apartment," he noted, and Anna covered her face with her hands. "He's important to you," he said simply.

"He is," she answered. "But he seems to think that he's the only thing in my life that is important to me. And that just isn't true." She knew he'd heard most of their argument; his face reflected it. There wasn't anything she'd said in there that she wanted to keep from him, but it felt like she was a zoo animal, and she had revealed something to a faceless scientist behind the glass that would draw a multitude of conclusions from it that weren't necessarily true.

He was watching her carefully, trying to find the words to say something that he seemed to know she wouldn't want to hear. She let him struggle through it, knowing that he wouldn't be satisfied until he said it. Finally, he sighed. "Is he as important to you as your husband?"

She could feel her heartbeat thundering in her chest. "How…?"

"Professor Simcoe came to see me," he explained quietly. "He uh…he mentioned that you're married."

She exhaled loudly, collapsing onto her bed. "It's not any of your business," she said sharply.

"Of course," he answered calmly, but she could feel the anxiety lurking just behind it. "But you can always talk to me, if you want."

"I don't," she snapped. "He's my husband in name only."

He nodded and didn't speak again for a long time. She could feel frustration lingering at the edges of her vision, masquerading as anxiety. It was such a thin line for her, most of the time, that frustration, anger faded into anxiety and panic. She struggled to keep that in check. She wouldn't let Edmund see that. Not now.

After a few minutes, his hand reached across the great divide of her room and settled on hers. She looked up at him, and he looked, if possible, as anxious as she felt.

"I'm sorry that I mentioned it," he said quietly.

She turned her hand over so their palms were brushing, and tightened her grip on his hand. "Let's forget it was ever mentioned."

She released his hand and let him follow her into the living room, where she put in the first disc of Firefly and leaned back into her couch to watch. Her obsession with the show was not something she advertised – the show had only lasted a season and many people thought that was a hilarious point to make – but the space western brought her some indeterminable peace that distance often did.

He watched it in awe, his smile soft and childish. "How have I never seen this?" he asked quietly.

She chuckled at his reverence. "You're British," she said simply. "Don't you guys all just watch Sherlock?"

He looked scandalized. "We watch many things other than Sherlock, thank you very much."

She let her nerves exit through her laughter. He smiled at the sound. "And yet you've never heard of Firefly."

"I admit, I'm upset I've never seen it," he agreed. "I love space."

"I know," she said quietly. "That's why I picked it."

She felt his eyes on her, but refused to look back; instead, she focused on the show, and smiled when he did the same. After the first episode, he leaned over to her and said, "You know, I can't decide if you remind me more of Zoe or Inara."

She chuckled. "Zoe was always my favorite, but I think I'm probably more like Inara."

He nodded in approval and turned his attention back to the television.

Hours later, Anna woke up with her head resting softly on a pillow that was sitting on Edmund's lap. She glanced up at him and smiled. His mouth was slightly open, but his eyes were closed. His eyelashes were splayed across his cheek like feathers, his hand resting gently on her back. He had to have put the pillow down so she would be more comfortable, and had gotten himself stuck on the couch in the process. The notion tickled her more than she cared to admit, and she found herself shaking with suppressed, giddy laughter. Her mirth eventually shook him awake, and Anna was graced with a moment of pure bewilderment on Edmund's face before he realized where he was.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she greeted, and his bleary eyes landed on her. A soft, quiet smile took over his face, and the tenderness there took her by surprise.

"You're the…I should say, you fell asleep first," he defended, trying not to yawn. "I just didn't want to wake you up." He glanced at the watch on his wrist, trying to decipher the time. The Firefly disc had ended, and was playing the menu music on repeat. Anna fumbled for the remote and turned it off, bathing the entire room in darkness.

She felt Edmund freeze beside her, and patted his arm reassuringly. She rose from her spot on the couch and went to the light and flicked it on, relishing in the sheer terror that the change in lighting brought out of Edmund, the distinguished law professor. He cowered, actually cowered, against the light, covering his eyes like it would blind him.

Her laughter coaxed out his own.

"I suppose I should go," he said, rising from his spot on the couch and straightening his jacket, already hopelessly wrinkled from his lounging.

She felt an unexplained disappointment spread through her, but ignored it. She nodded at him and led him to the front door, where he lingered for a few moments. She couldn't help but feel like they were at the end of their awkward first date. To put an end to their standoff, she wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug that he eagerly returned.

It was weird, hugging someone that would be standing in front of a class in a matter of hours while she sat in the desks – but they were both so much more than their occupations. She ignored the societal pressures that had been ingrained in her since she was young. Edmund was, by her guess, only in his early thirties. She was twenty-two. Not a large gap, especially for adults.

She wondered, with a jolt, why she was rationalizing a hug.

She watched him descend the stairs, smiling at him even wider when he paused at the bottom and looked back up at her. She closed the door to her apartment and locked it. She allowed herself the cliché moment of leaning against the door and wondering what she was feeling.

Giddiness, that's what it was.

"You have to talk some sense into him," Anna pleaded, letting her eyes flicker between both Caleb and Ben, who were staring at her not unlike a pair of disapproving parents. "He showed up at my apartment, without telling me."

Caleb shrugged. "He's done that before."

"And he refused to leave," Anna implored. "I have asked, repeatedly, for space."

Ben lowered his head to his hands and left it there. "He's not in a good place right now, Anna. Mary broke up with him, and now you want nothing to do with him? I don't think an intervention is going to help right now."

Anna huffed. "I didn't say I didn't want anything to do with him. I just said I didn't want to be with him."

"Which is essentially the same thing to Abe," Caleb pointed out. "You've always been more than a friend to him."

"Well he needs to get over it," Anna snapped. "I want to be his friend, but that's it."

"Then give him space," Ben reasoned. "You took his key away, so he can't get into your apartment anymore. Do what you wanted: stick to your plans, do better in your classes, and let Abe realize that he'd rather have you as just a friend rather than lose you completely."

"And if he doesn't?" Anna asked, her voice quiet. As annoying as Abraham had been lately, he was still her oldest friend. They shared too much of their lives to cut each other out now. No matter how stubborn Anna could be, the idea of losing Abe forever was still a terrifying thought.

"He will," Caleb said confidently.

Edmund found that he had a crick in his neck the next morning from falling asleep on Anna's couch. He squeezed the offending tendon between his hands as he got dressed the next morning, but couldn't bring himself to regret the act of sleeping on her couch.

When he realized she was asleep, her breathing quietly evening out, he noticed that she had slipped sideways once more, her head just barely resting on his shoulder. But that put her neck at a severe angle, and even looking at it made him uncomfortable.

So he had carefully…very carefully…taken a pillow from beside him and placed it on his lap, just over his thigh, and guided the sleeping woman to it, gently petting her dark hair that threatened to block his view of her peaceful face.

He watched the next couple of episodes of Firefly avidly, his hand mindlessly running itself through her long hair, and smiled as she seemed to fall into deeper sleep. She shifted in the middle of her dream, her free hand coming to rest under the pillow, just above his knee, and he tensed, feeling his hand stop in her hair.

She groaned, a tiny, quiet sound, and he resumed his petting.

He had fallen asleep that way, his own head tilted much like hers had been at the beginning, and slept more peacefully than he had since he left England.

That is, until he felt her move beside him, the hand that was resting on his thigh riding dangerously high as she pushed herself into a sitting position. He pretended to be asleep, if only to keep his facial expressions in check, but her hand stayed there, high on his thigh, and he wondered if she knew he was awake.

The damned minx, he thought ruefully.

He finally decided to stir, relishing in the laugh that she gave him at his sleepy face, and found that she was, if possible, even more beautiful when she just woke up. Her hair was a mess, but he could see the tracks his fingers had made in it, and admired his work.

It was intoxicating, seeing her like that.

He had been surprised when she hugged him; around the middle, like she was seeking comfort. He allowed himself to melt into her embrace, petting her dark, luxurious hair one more time before he pulled away.

He glanced back at her before he crossed underneath the awning to the parking lot. She was watching him, like some dark angel of the heavens, and he felt, once more, _infinite._


	7. Chapter 7

_**A note before I begin: You'll notice that this chapter isn't the name of a "class" or a "lesson," which is the trope I've been using for chapter titles. That's because this chapter is different. I've been looking for the right time to do this, and it will feel like a departure from the usual tone of the fic, but this particular part is something I felt deserved its own chapter. You'll also notice a slightly different writing style - that is by design.**_

 _ **There is a depression, anxiety, death of a child, loss content warning, and a hint of self-harm as a passing mention. Either way, if any of those things trigger you, you might want to skip this chapter.**_

The morning of March 23 dawned with rain on the horizon, and Anna considered for a long time not leaving the warmth of her bed. She had felt the sneaking presence of depression looming above her as the month of March continued, marred only by her tutoring sessions with Edmund, which often ended in her showing him some movie or television show he had not been exposed to in England. It was her way of paying him for his time, she reasoned, and they had graduated to often bringing takeout food back to her apartment and eating it while he looked at her papers, followed by the ease of television.

Abraham hadn't spoken to her in almost a month, but Mary hadn't spoken to him either, so Anna figured their relationship would either fall back together eventually or just stagnate where they were, stuck in this awkward limbo that he refused to acknowledge.

Ben and Caleb hadn't changed, that much she was grateful for.

She rolled over, her mind lingering on the day, and felt tears welling in her eyes. She sighed and let them flow, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop them today. She rolled over in her bed and faced the wall, hugging Horseradish close to her.

A knock at her door forced her to get out of bed. She grumbled the whole way over there, her shoulders stooped.

Ben and Caleb were at the door, holding a bag of something greasy and coffee cups. They both gave her bracing smiles and embraced her, holding her longer when she dissolved into heavier tears.

"We promised," Ben said when she asked why they were there, "that you would never have to spend this day alone."

Caleb nodded and opened the bag, revealing donuts, croissants, and an assortment of other pastries. "We brought food and coffee, and we have movies to last the whole day," he said, motioning to his backpack. "All silly comedies. What do you want first? We Are The Millers? Yes Man? Tammy? We have it all."

Anna allowed a small smile to sneak over her face, but it was chased away almost immediately by her melancholy. Her friends moved into the kitchen, where they busied themselves opening and closing various cabinets without much luck finding plates, until Anna had to point out that she had paper plates on top of the refrigerator.

"Don't you guys have class today?" she asked quietly as she moved toward the couch without food or her coffee.

Ben, noticing her movement, grabbed a plate and put a donut, a chocolate croissant, and a kolache on it. He set it on the floor in front of the couch, and placed the coffee beside it. He wrapped her in the blanket she left strewn over the back of the couch. It smelled like Edmund's cologne.

"Not on March 23," Caleb piped up.

"James would have been three today," Anna said softly, feeling tears on her face again. Caleb, in his infinite loudness, went silent. Ben glanced back up at his best friend, hoping that he would have something, anything that could cheer her up. But Caleb looked just as lost as Ben felt. Both of them felt useless in this situation; their interactions with Anna, their friendship, was often predicated in her wild recklessness, not tears. Anna did not often cry out of sadness, just anger.

A quiet knock startled all three of them. Anna quickly wiped her eyes and made to get up to answer it. Her movement almost upset her cup of coffee.

"I'll get it," Ben said, holding out his hand. She settled back into the couch, her eyes staring past the television without really looking. Ben spared her one more glance before he went to the door.

Abe was staring at his hands when he opened it, as if he was expecting to get reprimanded immediately.

"What are you doing here?" Ben asked.

"It's March 23," he said simply, and nodded toward inside. Ben considered him for a long moment before he decided his motives were pure and moved aside. Abe slipped his shoes off in the entry and took his place beside Anna on the couch, holding out his arms for her to fall into. She stared at his face, trying to remain impassive. The standoff held for a few moments before she hugged him close and dissolved into sobs.

They let Abe and Anna stay that way for a while, Anna sobbing inconsolably and Abraham whispering words of comfort into her hair, and watched like outsiders. This was the first year that Anna had even opened the door when Ben and Caleb came calling. The other two years she had spent with only Abe, and from what he told the two of them, she spent most of it crying and sleeping intermittently. She didn't want to remember that March 23 existed.

And while Abe always professed that he spent most of the day feeling useless, he never let her have alcohol, he never left her alone, and he never let her do anything that could harm herself.

"Happy birthday, James Strong," she finally said when her tears abated. Abraham released her from his arms and surveyed her face.

"Happy birthday, James Strong," the rest of them said.

Abe rose from the couch and poured Anna a glass of water, watching her closely while she drank it. "How do you feel?" he asked gently. She watched him over the rim of the glass, her brown eyes large and rimmed with red. "More?"

She nodded and passed the glass back to him. He refilled it and brought it back and repeated the previous interaction. Ben nodded toward the coffee. She took it between her hands and let the cardboard warm her fingers.

"Do you want to call Selah?" Abraham asked, wincing when her eyes filled with tears almost immediately. He hugged her close again. "Okay, okay, we don't have to call him."

"He left…he left me….alone," she said between hiccups.

Abraham exchanged looks with Ben and Caleb. All three of them were, once again, at a loss, as often people are when others are dealing with grief they can't feel as keenly. Caleb shrugged and took Abe's seat beside Anna, taking her face in his hands.

"What do you want us to do, Annie?" he asked, and for once his voice held no humor at all. "Anything you want, we will do."

She shook her head. "Nothing," she remarked quietly. "There's nothing to do."

Caleb, defeated, returned to Ben and Abraham. Ben, with a look that plainly said it was his turn, moved into the living room and put Yes Man into the DVD player and pressed play. Anna, soon, was sleeping soundly on the couch, her head burrowed into her turtle pillow pet that Abraham quickly fetched for her.

"We haven't seen you for a while," Ben said to Abe, their voices hushed while Anna slept. "How have you been?"

Abraham shrugged. "Mary still won't speak to me. She's dating Robert Townsend now."

"Saw that coming," Caleb commented. Abraham glared at him, but he pretended he didn't see.

"And Anna?" Abraham asked. Ben raised his eyebrows at him. "I just want to know how she is."

"Her grades are getting better," Ben said evenly. "So she feels a little less pressured. Simcoe still tries to get her to declare an anthropology major, but she's gotten pretty adept at avoiding him."

"And her…tutor?" Abe asked, his face a mask of indifference.

"Don't," Caleb warned. "Don't start talking about him."

"What, why?" Abraham asked, clearly latching onto something that could give him information.

"Because the poor bastard is helping Annie become a better writer, he doesn't need any more shit," Caleb said with a laugh. "And we all know that you think every man that looks at Anna is trying to steal her from you."

"Most of the time, they are," Abe pointed out.

Caleb tutted. "You can't own women. They can't be stolen. They aren't a horse. Or your dignity."

Abraham held up his hands in surrender. "Fine, let's talk about something else."

Ten minutes after six thirty, Edmund stood from his and Anna's spot in the library and looked around for his companion. They had spent almost as much time in the library as they did at her apartment, and she had expressed a few days ago that she would meet him here at six thirty. She was never late before.

The blossoming of their friendship was the saving grace of Edmund's adventures in America. He missed his mother, he missed his horse, he missed his telescope, still marooned in England. But Anna's friendship occupied him with mirth he thought he'd never feel here, and he felt increasingly at home beside her.

His own meetings with Richard Woodhull and other professors like Andre and Simcoe had almost poisoned him to the academic process. Simcoe seemed content to consistently rule with fear, shock, and awe rather than educate his students, Andre had no problem spending weeks at a time going completely off topic, and Richard Woodhull took as much interest in the lives of students as he did in his employees.

All in all, the faculty acted as much as children as some of the students did, except they professed to be better than the students.

Perhaps that was just how academia worked, but Edmund couldn't understand the elitism of the departments that were supposed to be grooming the next batch of leaders. It was almost as if they didn't even like the students; much less want them to succeed. They took too much pleasure in their failures, in their panic.

Twenty minutes past their meeting time. Edmund pursed his lips. Had Anna forgotten?

He occupied his time surveying the shelves of the non-fiction section, a section he had woefully left alone since his first foray into the library over a month ago. Although, he thought with a smile, he traded reading for a friendship, and that he couldn't truly be sorry about.

Could he really feel sorry that he left Mary, Queen of Scots's world behind so that he could learn that Anna's smile differed based on who had brought it about? Could he really mourn for someone like Roosevelt when he was too busy looking at the way Anna's hands tightened around Horseradish whenever Malcolm Reynolds was in trouble? Did he really want to trade Charlemagne for Anna's quiet confessions in the dead of night, when their eyes were so tired they couldn't hold them open?

It was seven, and Anna was nowhere to be seen. Edmund had to admit to himself that she wasn't coming. He thought about what could have kept her as he meandered his way down to his car. She could have gotten held up somewhere, but she had told him her last class ended at two those afternoons. Their meetings were habit now – she wouldn't have just forgotten.

He sat in his car and considered his options. He could pretend that he wasn't worried, or bothered by her lack of presence, but on the other hand, he could swing by her apartment and see if she was okay.

Five minutes later, he was sitting in the parking lot of her apartment complex and trying to work up the courage to go upstairs.

He could hear the television through the door when he made it to the top of the stairs. He almost sighed in relief. At least she was safe. He knocked confidently on the door, already trying to figure out how he would tease her for forgetting.

That is, until Abraham Woodhull opened the door.

"Professor Hewlett," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.

"Mr. Woodhull," he answered. "Is…Miss Strong here?"

"Now isn't really a good time," Abe said, practically closing the door on him. Edmund held out his hand and stopped the door before it could close.

"She was supposed to meet me at the library half an hour ago," he said. "I just want to know that she's okay."

Another male's voice rang out from behind Abraham. "Let him in, he might be able to help."

Edmund practically shoved the door open. "Help? Help with what?"

The shorter man Edmund had seen with Anna that first night at the bar was sitting at the dining room table, flanked by the man that Edmund had seen dancing with Anna. He vaguely recognized them from the pictures that Anna hung all over the apartment.

"Um," the bearded one trailed off.

"Is she okay?" Edmund asked, almost ashamed at the amount of concern in his voice. The taller one smiled at the sound.

"I'm fine," Anna's voice was a welcome change to the male tenor that had filled the apartment. He moved deeper into the apartment, into the living room, and found Anna wrapped in a blanket, hugging Horseradish, staring at the television screen without really seeing it. Her eyes were puffy, swollen, and he was pretty sure the little blood vessels in her eyelids were broken.

He rushed to her side, ignoring the way Abraham moved almost protectively closer to the couch as he did. He reached for her hand, and settled for placing his hand over one of the blankets she was cocooned in. "What's wrong, what happened?" he asked worriedly, searching her face for clues.

"I'm sorry I forgot," she answered, hardly looking at him. "I didn't realize what the date was."

"It's okay, it's okay," he immediately said, hoping she'd say more.

Behind him, he heard the other men talking amongst themselves. By the time he looked away from Anna, they were moving toward the other room, giving Anna and Edmund some semblance of privacy.

"What's the date?" Edmund asked, trying to prompt Anna into speaking.

Her eyes finally fell to his, and he was taken aback with the lack of fire he found in them. He reached for her hands again, and this time, she untangled them from the blankets and took his hands in hers.

"March 23," she said quietly, and he was alarmed to see tears in her eyes again.

One fell free, and he gently wiped it away with his thumb. "I don't know what that means," he admitted quietly. "But I don't want it to make you sad."

"Today is James's birthday," she clarified, but the name was unfamiliar to Edmund.

"Well, happy birthday, James," he answered slowly, "but why should that make you sad?"

"Because he's _dead_ ," she spat, her face contorting in anger for a moment before it returned to sadness. The tears fell in earnest now, and she didn't even blink to clear them. Edmund sighed and shifted in his seat, trying to figure out what to do next.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I don't really know what to say."

"Me neither," she shrugged. "Don't feel bad."

She cuddled into his side, letting Horseradish pillow her head as she laid it across Edmund's thigh. He ran his fingers through her hair, making sure that every tear that escaped from the eye he could see was soon wiped away by his finger.

"Who was James?" he finally asked. "If you want to say."

She was suddenly crying harder, like the words brought her a new wave of grief. Edmund pulled her upright and onto his lap, so her face was cradled in his neck. She clung to him, her arms around his neck and shoulders, and he could feel the dampness of her tears soaking through his jacket and shirt.

Finally, long after Edmund had forgotten that he asked her a question, she answered it. "James was supposed to be my son."

Edmund froze in the act of pulling her long hair out from between their bodies so he wouldn't pull her hair. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to react.

"I got married when I was 18 years old because I got pregnant. And Selah and I could have been happy…but I lost him. I lost our James. And then Selah lost me. March 23 was supposed to be my due date. This would have been his birthday."

The story wasn't particularly detailed, but tragedies never needed to be long. Edmund held her as close as he could while she cried anew, her voice raspy and broken from all of her weeping. After a few minutes, the taller man appeared from the hallway and leaned against the doorway. Edmund felt momentarily caught, but as Anna's hand tightened around his neck, he realized he didn't care.

 _Not today._

"That's the most she's said all day," he remarked. "Ben," he said, pointing to himself. "The other one's Caleb." He did a vague motion to his face that indicated a beard.

"Edmund Hewlett," he replied. They didn't shake hands.

Anna's cries had subsided somewhat, and Edmund was pleased to see her look around at Ben, trying to follow their short conversation. They fell silent at her movement, and Edmund was startled when he felt the rumbling of her stomach against his side.

"Have you eaten today?" he asked, and she turned to him; they were so close their noses were almost brushing. He blinked, trying not to blush in front of her friend.

She shook her head ruefully, and he smirked at her. "I thought we discussed that food is good, even when, and especially when, you are busy or sad. Want me to order your favorite?"

She didn't answer him, but he wasn't really asking for her permission. He nudged her off of him and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Ben had retreated to the entry.

"She won't let us make her any food," he confided in Edmund. "We've tried."

Edmund frowned. "Let me try, and then we will commiserate with what she doesn't eat." He dialed a number into his phone and spoke quickly with someone with a heavy accent on the other line. When he hung up, Ben watched as he slipped his phone back into his pocket and went, unafraid and confident, into the living room. He watched as Edmund Hewlett took Tammy out of the DVD player and replaced it with Firefly.

"Our Mrs. Reynolds should make you feel a little better," he said sunnily to Anna, who hardly responded. "And if it doesn't, at least it'll put you to sleep."

Ben watched as Edmund walked into the kitchen and pulled a glass out of the cabinet without having to rummage and filled it with water. He took it back to her and passed it to her silently asking hands. When she finished it, he refilled it halfway and brought it back.

"Not too fast," he warned. "It'll make you sick."

Twenty minutes later, he was answering a knock at the door and carrying in a veritable feast of food into the living room. He set a Styrofoam box of rice and chicken in front of Anna with a fork sticking out of it and brought a stack back to Ben.

"I got some for everyone," he said with a shrug. "It's Indian food. You're welcome to watch television with us. She seems a little better now."

And Ben had to admit, she did. She ate very little, but she did eat without prompting, and she drank another two glasses of water before she slipped into a restless sleep, her hand tangled in Edmund's.

Abraham refused to look in their direction, but he clapped Edmund on the back before he left. "Thank you, for what you've done for her," he said. Edmund gave him a single nod.

When he and Anna were finally alone, he watched her peacefully sleeping face carefully. He could still see the traces of her grief in the slight lines of her face. When he felt sleep tugging at his own eyes, he scooped her up into his arms and very gently carried her back to her bed. He tucked her in, resisting the urge to kiss the top of her head, and settled in to sleep on the couch.

If her grief made a comeback in the middle of the night, he would be there.

It was only right; she had chased away his own homesickness, his own form of grief. She deserved to have someone willing to do the same thing for her.


	8. Chapter 8

Anna woke in the middle of the night, her eyes sore and all too comfortable remaining closed. She stayed in her bed, her eyes half-closed, and examined the streams of moonlight coming through her window. The day, _the_ day, had become a blur of stinging tears and an ache that permeated her entire body. But it was over now – she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She had survived another March 23. Just thinking about the ordeal made her feel some strange sense of pride in herself.

It took a few minutes for her to realize that she hadn't fallen asleep in her bed. She glanced around the room, finally wrenching her tired eyes open all the way. Her head felt heavy, full of the tears she'd shed. She groaned and held her head between the temples, rubbing the soft skin there tentatively.

Water, she thought decisively. Water will help.

She padded quietly into the kitchen and filled her cup, left beside the sink. She considered its position curiously for a few moments. She never left her cup like that. With a shrug, she filled it with water and sipped quietly.

The sound of someone breathing almost made her drop her cup. She squinted into the liquid darkness and tried to make out the form of someone asleep on her couch; her tiny, uncomfortable couch.

Edmund.

A small smile graced her lips. So he had stayed after all. His methods of consolation had surprised her. The Edmund she was used to was constantly asking questions, making sure he had her approval whenever he did something that directly affected her. But last night, Edmund hadn't offered up a question once if she approved or not. He ordered her food, placed it before her with a fork sticking out of it, and told her what she was going to watch, eat, and drink. At the time, when grief was weighing her down so heavily and the song of death was singing loudly in the hallways of her mind, she was incapable of making decisions.

She didn't know what she wanted, or felt, or needed. So she listened to him.

She moved quietly into the living room, her movements silent on the plush carpet. She kneeled in front of sleeping Edmund and gently rested her hand on the side of his face. She wondered, briefly, what Selah would think if he could see her now. Her previous relationships, with Abe, Selah, and the few boys she'd dated in high school and middle school that she'd all but forgotten now, were all feats of high passion – immediate, fleeting, strong.

She didn't feel like that with Edmund. Could their friendship be even considered a relationship? They spent a lot of time together, to be sure, and they certainly came into physical contact more often than strictly necessary. And there was just something about the way he looked at her – with pride, with curiosity, with something close to adoration, that filled her chest with a delicious pain.

She gently let her hand ruffle his short hair, relishing in the quiet sound he made.

They had known each other over a month already, but to Anna, it felt like they had known each other and simply forgotten, only to meet again later, when they were both different people. There was something infinitely familiar about his kind soul, about his soft, large heart.

But even despite all of that, despite the thundering in her heart when his sleeping hand caught hers and pulled it close to his chest – he was a teacher, she a student. Their relationship, if she could call it that, could get him fired. Could ruin her reputation, not that the reputation part chapped that much.

She tightened her hold around his hand, and felt him stir. She considered, just for a moment, sneaking back to her room, but couldn't bring herself to let go of his hand. His eyes fluttered open slowly, and Anna was struck once again by his eyelashes, the unfathomable darkness in his eyes that was somehow contradicted by the lightness of his soul.

"Anna…?" he mumbled quietly, releasing her hand to rub his eyes.

"You're on my couch," she pointed out softly, leaning her chin on her arm, putting her face close to his. He seemed momentarily lost in her close proximity, and sighed quietly before he allowed himself to speak.

"I wanted to make sure someone was here if you needed something," he said. "Do you? Need something?"

She smiled at him, still charmed by his quiet sleepiness. "I do need something, actually."

He immediately moved to sit up. "What is it?"

"I need you to follow me," she held out her hand in the dark, and he stared at it, trying to figure out what she could possibly need.

As the silence stretched and he didn't take her hand, she stepped closer to him. "Don't you trust me?"

His hand landed in hers immediately after. She gently tugged him behind her, taking him past the front door, past the hallway, and into her bedroom. She pointed to her messy bed. "Get in."

His eyes immediately rose to hers, questions lingering there. He was being cautious again, now that her grief wasn't at the forefront. He didn't want to break any unspoken rules.

"You slept on my tiny, cramped couch for hours," she explained. "Get in the bed."

He still hesitated, and she sighed heavily. "Don't make me push you in."

"I don't want to…make you uncomfortable," he said softly. She went to his side, placing her hand gently over his heart. It was _pounding_.

"I'm telling you," she said firmly. "Get in the bed. This is what I need."

He didn't seem to have any argument that he could articulate, and after another few moments of hesitation, he eased himself between the sheets, settling comfortably against the pillows. She slid in beside him, and faced him. His eyes were open, drinking in her face for signs of uneasiness.

She let her gaze fall to his lips for only a moment. Did she dare? They had, as far as she could tell, already crossed several lines of propriety. But did she want to consummate it, even with something as chaste as a kiss? He seemed to notice where her gaze was. She watched as his tongue darted out to wet his lips, and she clenched her jaw tightly. She felt him start to move and his hand landed softly, sweetly, on her cheek. Her eyes jumped to his – his eyes were locked onto her mouth.

But, she thought, if she kissed him, in her bed, in the middle of the night, would she be able to stop? Or would it be too easy to blame it on the day, on her frayed nerves, and on her raw feelings?

She took his hand from her face and held it in her own. The spell was broken.

His eyes were starting to drift closed again, and she filed the question away for another time. She scooted closer to him, laying her head on his arm. His eyes, already closed, stayed that way, but his arm snaked around her and pulled her closer to him, so her nose was barely touching his neck.

She felt him sigh contentedly, and let the sound of his breathing lure her to sleep.

He was gone when she woke up the next morning, and she felt a sharp pang of disappointment until she found the note he left her on the bathroom mirror. "Class at 8 a.m.," it read in his neat handwriting. "You looked too peaceful to wake up."

She gently pulled it free of the glass and placed it on top of the middle drawer, where she kept hair clips and bobby pins. She couldn't place why she decided to keep it, but it made her smile, knowing it was there. It lingered in her mind as she ate breakfast (a Poptart that she couldn't find the energy to toast) and drank her coffee (with a little too much cream).

Would things between them be different now, she wondered? Or would they continue on much as they had before, their silence making their slide toward intimacy a much longer fall? Still, the question from the night before lingered: if what she felt for him was certainly something more than friendship, more than simply a closeness borne out of constant contact, how would that affect his job? Her education? His reputation?

Hers was already in tatters, and while that bothered her in reference to his own shiny blank slate, it didn't truly mean much to her. But if she were honest with herself, having her by his side, in whatever capacity, would not help his standing at Setauket University. With Richard Woodhull as provost, it would keep him from advancing socially and academically. It would hinder his great mind.

She couldn't bear that.

No, their relationship must remain professional, if not for his sake, then for her own conscience.

Saying the words to herself did not pose too much difficulty, but she knew that once she saw him, once she let the memory of his arm around her rise to the surface of her mind, the words wouldn't mean much. In the wake of that smile he gave her when she used his first name, her own declarations would mean very little.

She sighed, letting her head fall to her hands.

Edmund tapped his fingers idly by his keyboard. He should feel exhausted; truly, his body was aching and his neck was probably stiff, but his mind was working overtime. He had dreamt, hoped, of the day that he might be able to share a bed with Anna Strong, though admittedly only some of those fantasies were as chaste as his reality, but the fact that she had offered that intimate space to share with him, that she had basically ordered him to accept it – it was invigorating.

Still, he wondered if this was all some cruel joke, if he dreamed it all. But he remembered, with a vividness that was sure to last the test of time, the way her hair was strewn over his chest when he woke up, how she was turned away from him, her bare neck just barely visible beneath the curtain of dark hair. He remembered how he struggled to get out of her embrace without waking her.

He remembered her face, both in the dark and the next morning. He would never forget, no, he would curse himself if he ever lost this memory, how her eyes dropped to his mouth in the darkness. The moonlight provided him just enough visibility to see the telltale movement of her eyelashes, and he felt his stomach tighten in anticipation.

The air was almost suffocating with the static her gaze provided him, and he felt rather than saw her lean almost imperceptibly in before she hesitated. He should have, should have closed the distance between their mouths, but he couldn't bring himself to do what he would later consider taking advantage of someone who was still reeling from tragedy. Their first kiss, if they got one, would not be tainted with that.

But still, he felt foreboding deep in his chest, where he knew, without any sort of bias, that what they were doing would get them into trouble.

Truthfully, however, he hardly cared. Not when he had the image of her jaw, shadowed by the moon, and the smell of her hair and feel of her skin in his mind. That was his own illness – his own taking. She was dangerous, and infinitely more deadly all for her obliviousness.

A knock at his doorframe shook him free of his memories; he felt his face warm as if the intruder could hear his thoughts. It was Baker, grinning at his expression.

"Someone was deep in thought," he remarked. Edmund allowed a shaky laugh to escape his lips.

"How can I help you?" he asked, sitting up a little straighter in his chair.

Baker waved off his professionalism. "Just came to inform you that the department is planning on going out for drinks tonight, and Woodhull is demanding your presence. He says you've turned him down too many times already."

Edmund pursed his lips in thought. "Ah. Yes, well, I daresay I should be free tonight," he said pensively. "Sounds like a plan."

Baker tapped the doorframe twice with the palm of his hand and left, leaving Edmund alone with his thoughts once more. He didn't have any plans with Anna tonight, which meant she might actually be at the bar when he was. The thought of the sneaky looks they could send each other sent a thrill through him.

He smirked and shook his computer mouse awake.

"Annie, I thought you didn't want to go to the bar anymore," Caleb pointed out as Anna's hand closed over his arm and yanked him toward the door.

She ignored him. She didn't, truly, want to go to the bar anymore – it offered her the opportunity to forget that she had homework to do, it gave her the alcohol necessary to make bad decisions, and she really didn't need any more of those. But she had resigned herself, just this morning, to distancing herself from Edmund for the sake of his professional status, and the man seemed to sense that she had decided to do something he wouldn't be fond of, because he had called her _three times_ today.

She had ignored all three of them. He was probably only calling to check on her, or to reschedule their tutoring session that she had missed the day before, but she knew that if she heard his voice, if he asked her something thoughtful, she would be right back where she started. So no, she'd asked Ben, Caleb, and, reluctantly, Abraham, to meet her at the bar so they could drink.

And she intended to turn her phone off while she did it.

Ben and Abraham were already at the bar, holding beers. Ben offered Anna the seat beside him, which she gratefully took. The bartender hardly had to make eye contact with her before he was pouring her a glass of vodka and lemonade. She had been here enough, talked with the bartender enough, that he knew what she wanted and when.

It was probably the most stable relationship she had.

"How do you feel?" Abraham asked her, his eyes concerned. She could see just a hint of his former resentment there, but she was grateful he'd momentarily forgotten it. "Better?"

She shrugged. "As better as I can be, I suppose."

He nodded, as if he'd expected that answer.

"And Mary?" she asked. He turned back to her, and she wished immediately that she hadn't asked. His eyes were searching her face, looking for some hidden hint, a secret message that betrayed that she was, in fact, interested in dating him again. She struggled to keep her face impassive.

"Still with Robert Townsend?" Caleb laughed into the silence. "I'm amazed that she went from our dear sweet Abe to the most elitist and uptight history major."

Abraham's eyes left hers; Anna breathed a sigh of relief.

"She's still with Townsend," Abe confirmed.

Anna took a long drink from her glass and had to flinch away from the ice that almost assaulted her face. She turned her attention to Ben, who was looking out at the crowd. "You're quiet," she remarked.

He shrugged. "Aren't I always?"

She leaned onto his arm and blinked her eyes up at him. "What's wrong with you, Ben?" she asked. "You can tell me."

His eyes flickered over to Abe for just a moment, and Anna understood. She kept her head on his shoulder but fixed her gaze forward, away from Ben's face. She had always known that Ben was particularly protective of his friends, but he was always a perpetrator of goodness – Abe's dishonesty when it came to Mary and Anna had pushed his morality to the point of break, especially when he felt compelled to keep it to himself.

Knowing now, that Abraham was acting like Mary leaving him made him a victim irritated him to no end. And knowing that Anna had invited him back into the fold, when the other two were leaving that decision up to her out of respect, had to annoy him just as much.

"He'll figure out what he wants eventually," she said quietly. "And if both of us have already decided that we don't want him, he'll have to grow up. Right?"

He shrugged, lifting her head with it. "We can only hope."

"Annie, isn't that your friend?" Caleb asked loudly, a teasing lilt to his voice. "The nerdy one?"

Anna felt coldness land in her stomach; she didn't have to turn around to know Caleb had spotted Edmund. What was the probability that he would be at the bar that neither of them frequented on the same night? Ben was looking down at her now, his eyes quizzical. She avoided them. He could read eyes like books – she didn't want to know what he'd find in hers.

"Don't you want to say hi?" he asked quietly.

"Nope," she replied immediately. "Especially if he's here with other professors."

Ben exhaled knowingly. "Well, would you like to dance, then?" he asked as an upbeat song started up. "That'll take your mind off of it."

She let him take her hand and lead her to the dance floor, but she couldn't stop her eyes from rising to the table where she knew Edmund would be sitting. His eyes were surreptitiously following her.

Their eyes met – and Anna could already feel her resolve crumbling.

She could see the breathlessness in his gaze, the way he had been looking at her last night, when she was considering kissing him in the dark. She was suddenly forcibly reminded of his hand on her back, his large hands splayed across the expanse of her shoulder blades. Her nose in his neck, breathing in the scent of his expensive shirt and just a hint of his cologne.

His eyes left hers and he turned to someone, who had caught his attention. Anna followed his gaze, and felt her legs turn to lead.

He was talking to Simcoe.

"It seems Anna Strong is here," Simcoe said, his voice barely audible over the sound of the music. The mention of her name brought Edmund to a screeching halt. He turned his eyes to the detestable man across the table from him. He could see that Simcoe's eyes were following Anna's journey around the dance floor.

Against his better judgment, he turned his eyes back to her. Her hair was flying, her eyes alight with fun, her smile large and genuine. Ben, the one Edmund had only met the night before, would pull her close, their chests flush with each others, only to spin her away again. She would laugh in glee, her feet carefully and deftly moving without much thought.

She was graceful, a planet of beauty in orbit. Edmund couldn't help but wish that he was the sun around which she revolved.

Ben pulled her close again, this time her back against his chest, and Edmund watched his eyes lower to her. Almost at the same time, her eyes rose to his, and he had the terrifying premonition that they were about to kiss.

Jealousy, or disappointment, flared in his chest momentarily, and he clenched his hand tight around his glass of wine. He watched, unable to look away, as Ben leaned close to her, whispered something in her ear, and then spun her away. Their hands caught at the last possible second, and he brought her back for a low dip as the song ended.

She gave him one more look, this one full of fear and trepidation, and made her way back to the bar.

Simcoe rose from his seat. "I think I'll get another drink."

Foreboding settled once more into Edmund's abdomen. He rose to follow him, but Richard Woodhull's voice called him back.

"Edmund," he was saying, his face already a little ruddy from a couple of drinks. "I heard that you have started tutoring students. Tell me, how is that going for you?"

One of his first encounters with Anna came to mind. _Richard is going to get jealous,_ she'd said. He remembered Richard's own gruff attitude when she was mentioned.

"It is certainly rewarding," he said carefully, edging around the question. "I find it occupies my time in a – uh – productive way."

Richard considered him for a moment, trying to find fault with his answer. "And the students are responding well?"

Edmund swallowed thickly. "Yes, I believe they are."

After a moment of silence, in which Edmund started imagining in great detail how he would get fired for sleeping in the same bed with a student, how he would never see Anna again, how he would go back to England and have to become a lawyer again, Richard started to laugh.

"Well, good for you, man. You seem like you're starting to get your feet under you!" he crowed, clapping Edmund on the back.

Edmund breathed a quiet sigh of relief and hid it with a long drink from his glass of wine.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Plight of Anthropology readers:**

 **Before I finish chapter nine and post it, I want to talk a little about where this chapter is going. I've mentioned a couple of times that part of this story is based in reality - my husband and I met while he was a teacher and I was a student (he was never my teacher, and while we loved each other desperately, we didn't start dating until I graduated). He (and now I) had a theatre company that used student volunteers as actors, and he showed me how much I loved acting and how being a lost artist in college was not something that was unique to my own experience. He gave me a family of friends.**

 **But I also knew some very problematic people - yes, Abe's behavior, Ben's, Caleb's, Simcoe's, and Richard's are all based on people I knew. And though most of those people will not abandon Anna, all of them abandoned me.**

 **But Simcoe has a special place in hell for me. Simcoe is based on someone that used to be one of my friends that decided when he met me that he was entitled to me, to my body, and to my love. And yes, the scene that borders on sexual assault that will be coming up in chapter nine is based on my own experience. Except, (spoiler alert) Anna has someone that can come to her rescue.**

 **I did not.**

 **I have never written about this experience before, and it has been a rough chapter to write, though not nearly as rough as the "March 23″ chapter. So forgive me if my writing isn't as vivid as you'd like. I'm doing my best.**

 **And, if I might provide one more tidbit - Simcoe in this story is terrifying, at least to me, because of his predatory nature, but in my own experience, Simcoe was even more terrifying, because not only was he predatory, but he was my husband's best friend. And no one saw that side of him but me. No one believed me for a long time that he was capable of the things he did to me.**

 **So chapter nine has a sexual assault trigger warning. Please do not read if that triggers you.**

Simcoe was drunk, Anna reflected with a barely hidden shudder. She could smell it on his breath, but he was doing a remarkable job of making sure his movements were still steady. He didn't knock anything over, he didn't slur his words. But she could see, in his eyes, the lack of focus that she often saw in Abraham's when he drank too much. He was leaning rather heavily against the wood of the bar, his eyes fixed on her.

"I've been impressed with your improvement in my class, Mrs. Strong," he pointed out, bringing his glass up to his lips for a long sip. Anna watched the trajectory of the drink with narrowed eyes. "I trust your tutor has served his purpose?"

Anna cleared her throat, trying to shake free her fear. "Professor Hewlett has been very helpful."

"Yes, I daresay he has," Simcoe said quietly. His eyes roved over her face, his usual hidden desire made plain with the influence of alcohol. Anna struggled not to look for Caleb and Abraham, who had gone outside for a smoke. Ben was on the dance floor, invited by one of his classmates. She could feel his eyes on her, watching carefully for signs of distress, but it didn't feel like enough.

Anna shifted in her seat like she was going to get up and Simcoe's hand landed heavily on her arm, stopping her movement. She jumped embarrassingly, and felt her arm tense. His hand was warm, almost sweaty, and even when she stopped moving, he didn't remove it.

"I wonder if it's going to matter that you pass my class on your own merit when everyone finds out what you're doing with Hewlett," he hissed, his voice hardly audible above the music.

Anna felt a blush rising on her face and struggled to suppress her body's natural reaction. She tried to wrench her arm back, but his fingers tightened around her arm painfully. "I don't know what you mean."

He almost rolled his eyes at her. He leaned closer to her, and the oppressive smell of alcohol almost made her gag. "You aren't fooling me, Mrs. Strong," he spat, and Anna flinched away from his flying saliva. He leaned even closer to her, and when she tried to lean back, his hand tightened painfully around her arm.

She abandoned all pretense of trying to appear unbothered. "Let me go," she said firmly, but she could feel the muscles in her neck beginning to quiver with the force it took for her to stay calm. He was much too close, the room was too loud. Everything was closing in on her.

"Anna?"

And suddenly, Simcoe's hand was off of her arm, and Anna turned shakily to Ben, who was approaching the bar. His eyes narrowed at Simcoe, who nodded at him in acknowledgment, like he hadn't just been on the verge of leaving bruises on Anna's arm.

"Something wrong here?" Ben asked, putting himself between Anna and Simcoe. Simcoe smiled at him in that quiet, terrifying way of his and rose.

"Of course not," he said lightly. "We were just having a conversation, weren't we, Mrs. Strong?"

Anna didn't respond, but in the time that it took Ben to turn to her, Simcoe was already starting back toward his table of faculty members. Edmund was talking to Richard, his back to Anna. He had missed the whole exchange.

"Anna?" Ben asked, but his voice sounded like it had to travel through a tunnel of sound. Anna ignored him and raised her finger for another drink, chugging the whole thing the second it was in front of her. Immediately, she asked for another one. He watched her, the unspoken apology etched in the lines of his face. She rejected it without speaking.

She let him escort her onto the dance floor again, choosing the time to remain much closer to him than usual. Let Simcoe see that, she thought bitterly. His accusation of what she was "doing with Hewlett" rattled in her head as she struggled to hear only music. She felt Ben's arms wrap around her waist and pull her closer to him, her back against his chest. It was an intimate gesture they had done a thousand times before, but even now, she hoped that Simcoe was taking it the wrong way.

Let him see her pressed against Ben; let him question his accusation. She turned her head to the faculty table, ignoring how the alcohol made her over-correct her head, and found Edmund watching her instead.

She had completely forgotten he was there. Their eyes stayed locked, her own anger, panic, and disgust only rising the more his face registered hurt and jealousy. Simcoe's own eyes were watching her, but Edmund – Edmund wouldn't understand.

The alcohol was starting to register in her system and she was forced to lean even more against Ben, who took her extra weight without problem. She looked up as she caught her balance. Edmund was getting up.

Edmund's feeling of disappointment had morphed into jealousy now; the way Anna was pulling Ben against her curves, the way her collarbone flushed dark pink – he didn't want to watch this anymore, this show that she was conducting, but he couldn't seem to look away.

He wondered if he had kissed her last night, if she would be doing this now.

Her hair was falling in her face, but her could see her large, soft eyes, hardened with something he couldn't place, and the slightly open expanse of her mouth. Ben's hands were low on her hips, his head bent toward her neck, like he was whispering in her ear.

She flipped her hair out of her face with a flick of her neck and her eyes were on his again, wide and suddenly tender.

He looked away; he rose from his seat and moved toward the bar to pay his tab.

He didn't want to see this anymore.

Anna watched him rise from his seat and go to the bar. She wanted, ached to go to him, to explain what she was doing, why she had let herself drink so much, but Simcoe's eyes were still on her. He was watching, an amused smile on his face, like she had played right into some unknown trap.

She probably had.

When the song was over, she shoved her way back toward the bar, trying to decide if she was going for another drink or for Edmund, but by the time she reached it, he was gone. She groaned, leaning her head on her arm, feeling the room lurch as she did. She blinked several times and raised her head again. The bartender had already refilled her drink. She took it without thinking.

"Whoa, Annie's drunk!" Caleb crowed, finally back from his smoke with Abe. Abraham's eyes were concerned, but Anna avoided them with a scowl. Caleb pulled himself up onto the barstool beside her. "You change your mind about drinking?"

She shrugged. Drinking didn't matter, she thought bitterly. Simcoe's eyes were still on her, his predatory gaze setting her nerves on fire. She couldn't sit still, but her limbs, her head was so heavy with the alcohol, she was having trouble even sitting up at the barstool.

Ben leaned close to her. "If you explain to Edmund, I'm sure he'll understand."

He always knew. Anna felt a rush of drunken affection for Ben and squeezed his arm appreciatively. "No he won't," she shook her head. "Maybe it's better this way."

"You don't mean that," Ben countered, wrapping his arm around her waist to keep her from sliding off the barstool. "Let's take you home, you can sleep this off, and you two will talk in the morning."

She shook her head, but why she was still doing it, she didn't know. She slid off the barstool and moved past Ben. "I have to pee," she said like it was a secret. He chuckled at her and nodded, taking her seat to wait for her.

The bathroom was empty when she got there. She stared at herself in the mirror for a few seconds, remarking silently on how dull her eyes looked, how tangled her hair was. She hated herself – she couldn't stop those feelings now that alcohol had already broken down the mental walls she tried so hard to keep up.

How was she supposed to explain this to Edmund tomorrow? Tell him that she was putting on a show for someone who shouldn't be looking at her in the first place? And wouldn't that put him in the same category? Would she tell him about Simcoe, about his advances? Would she explain how terrified she was of him?

No – she wasn't sure she could stomach having that conversation. And he would do what Selah did, what Abe did: he would decide one day that she was too much trouble, and in this case, she was. She would be the reason he'd lose his job. She could be the person to ruin his career forever.

How was she supposed to explain to Edmund that she was the girl that was only good for temporary love? She was the placeholder. She furiously wiped away the tear that snaked down her cheek and sniffed.

The door to the bathroom eased open quietly, and Anna struggled to fix her face into something impassive. Drunk women, while the easiest to please and the nicest form of women, still asked too many questions for her taste.

But the hand around the wooden door wasn't female.

She recognized Simcoe's hand belatedly as it reached for her arm. How had she not noticed that he had followed her? Anna tried to retreat, to keep her arm out of his reach, but his fingers had already closed around her forearm.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but even as she heard the words, she knew it was a strangled kind of yell.

He pushed her against the wall roughly, her head slamming against the tile. Black dots swam in her vision, and she struggled against his other arm, now pressed against her neck. His eyes were angry, full of a tempest she had never seen before, and he was hungry. His body was pressed against hers so hard she could hardly breath, but even then, she could feel his arousal pressed against her thigh.

She struggled against him, her strength sapped by her lack of air in her lungs. She would not succumb to this, she thought. She shoved him back, only succeeding in moving him a few inches, and flinched away from him as he lowered his mouth to her neck.

She didn't know how she managed to bring her knee up and hit him in the groin, but it gave her enough of an opening to run for the door. He doubled over in pain, grunting loudly, but before her hand could close around the door, he caught her again. This time, his arm tripped her up and she landed heavily against the floor of the bathroom, his hand around her ankle.

She kicked at him, her panic and adrenaline giving away to tears. Still, she couldn't find her voice to scream. Terror had taken it from her, and she cursed herself more the longer she stayed silent.

"Come on, Anna," he growled at her, and at the sound of her first name on his lips, Anna kicked at him, her foot landing in the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. She felt rather than heard the sound of his shoulder dislocating, and when he pulled his arm back to himself, roaring in pain, Anna barely managed to pull herself up and flee.

She had to lean against the wall of the hallway that led back to the bar. No one had even noticed that Simcoe was yelling. No one noticed that she had been gone. No one would have come to her rescue.

She couldn't stop herself from vomiting onto the floor next to her feet.

Someone's hands were reaching for her own, pulling her chin up, and she immediately reacted, wrenching herself away from them, falling against the wall. Ben's eyes were wide and concerned, and he held up his hands in surrender to show her he meant no harm.

She threw herself into his arms, sobbing, and he held her there for a moment, his head cradling the back of her head. He still didn't know what had happened. Anna didn't plan to tell him.

How could she tell him how easily she'd left herself open to attack? How could she tell him that she couldn't even bring herself to scream for help? How could she?

Her tears wracked her body like a ship in a storm, and Ben was whispering words of comfort in her ear, but it didn't matter.

She felt nothing but fear.

She found the bruises on her body the next morning when she realized that sleeping hadn't spirited away the nightmares she thought she had only imagined. She could see the shape of his fingers around her wrist and her upper arm, and a dark bruise was spreading on her elbow and her ankle where he had grabbed her. She didn't even want to look at her neck.

She hid them under a heavy sweater despite the weather, and long jeans. She flinched as she turned her head on her neck, trying to stretch out her tensed muscles. She could still feel that coiled fear in the pit of her stomach, the self-loathing that followed her every time she spotted a bruise.

She didn't go to class. She didn't cry. She spent the day staring at the television, not even bothering to turn it on. She couldn't stomach food – she could hardly stomach her own thoughts.

She let her appointment with Edmund come and go. She ignored his phone call and his worried text messages. When he came to the door, she jumped in fear, but she didn't answer it. Soon enough, he left.

Afternoon melted into night, and as darkness started to blur the edges of reality, Anna realized that she was _scared._ The night before, she'd had alcohol help her sleep – tonight, she had nothing but her thoughts. She had only the phantom fingers on her arm, his breath on her neck.

When the first sob managed to untangle itself from her alcohol strained throat, she reached for her phone. Edmund answered on the first ring.

"Anna?" his voice was worried, but she could hear a little of the remnants of uncertainty there. She considered hanging up. He didn't deserve this – he didn't need to know.

"Can you pick me up?" she asked, and she could hear him already getting up from wherever he was sitting, the jingle of his keys. His immediacy only made her cry harder.

"Where are you?" he replied, his voice hard. "I'm coming."

She didn't answer for a moment; she was caught up in her own tears, in her own panic, in the darkness of the room, the same darkness that haunted her every time she closed her eyes. She wrenched her sweater off of her body, her panic rising her body temperature too high.

" _Anna!"_

"Home," she said softly, her voice thin.

She could hear the car turning on, the sound of him pulling out of his driveway. She clenched her hand into a fist around the cushion of her couch. How long would it take him to get here? How many questions would he ask?

She felt bile rise in her throat again at the thought of telling him the story. How would he look at her? Would he think she deserved it?

She covered her mouth so her cries couldn't be heard over the phone. She regretted calling him now – she would have to explain herself, and Edmund, kind, sweet Edmund, would want to tell someone else. He'd say it was for her safety, but he would want to take her to the police, to a doctor. He'd want to do everything in his power to make her feel safe.

But he couldn't. And she couldn't stomach telling the story, seeing the pity in his face, seeing the pity in everyone's faces. She couldn't bear the 'I told you so's," the hushed tones while they asked her how she felt.

She couldn't bear any of it.

But he was already parking the car – she could hear the engine turn off, and climbing the stairs. She considered, irrationally, hiding in her room, or not answering the door again, but his knock was frantic, worried, and she needed someone to hold onto.

She opened the door and reached for him before he even registered that the door was open. She held onto him like she was drowning, and he tentatively wrapped his arms around her waist. She could hear him asking her questions, trying to make sure she was okay, but there was nothing for her to say.

"Anna," he finally insisted, pulling away from her, trying to look at her face, to inspect her for trouble. "Anna, what happened?"

She tried to look away from him, but the movement brought his hand to her neck, where pain flared hotly where she knew there must be a bruise. She hissed and moved away from it. Edmund immediately retracted his hands, his eyes falling to her neck. She wished suddenly for the sweater again.

"Anna, your neck!" he exclaimed, tilting his head to see it better. She pulled away from him and tried to find a way to hide it from his view, but he had already seen. "Anna, what is that?" his voice had lost its frantic edge and bordered on a growl. "Who did this to you."

She stepped closer to him again, feeling desperation clutching at her with its slippery fingers. "Edmund, please."

But there was a darkness in his eyes now, the color of danger, of protectiveness. She reached for his face, trying to keep him focused.

"Take me away from here," she said softly, her voice so soft and so broken she could see his resolve waver. He reached for her hand and she had to hide a flinch as his hand brushed over another bruise. "Please."

He had seen her flinch but tried to keep the worry from his face. He nodded without speaking, and she closed the door to her apartment, leaving her phone behind inside. She let him lead her to his car, and they both stayed silent as he drove her to his home, a modest-sized house with a flowerbed that looked well-tended. He opened the front door for her, letting her go in first.

"Sit," he offered, but it sounded like a command. She obeyed, feeling her panic start to abate now that she was out of her apartment. The lamp in the corner of the room bathed the couch in a soft light that eased her nerves. Edmund took the seat beside her.

"Now," he said, jutting his chin at her bruise. "Who did that to you?"

She shook her head.

"Do _not_ ," he said immediately. "I've been worried sick about you all day, despite your…behavior last night –"

She felt tears rising in her eyes.

"And you call me out of the blue and you're crying, and you have bruises on your neck, and your arm. I would hazard a guess that there are more. I demand to know who did this to you, Anna."

Her voice was small, and that, more than the bruises, seemed to frighten him. "It doesn't matter. Nothing will happen to them."

He scooted closer to her, and his eyes hardened a little when she flinched. "I will make sure something happens to them," he promised, trying to catch her eyes with his own. "But you have to tell me what happened."

"I can't," she whispered, tears sliding down her face again.

Edmund nodded absently, more an acknowledgement of her statement than an acceptance. He stood and padded into the kitchen, moving easily around in his home, and as he slipped out of sight, Anna could hear the faucet turn on in the kitchen. He returned with a washcloth, damp in his hands. He held it out to her.

"This will help the bruise dissipate faster," he explained. "Just put it on the bruises."

She put it on her arm first, where the bruise hurt the most, and Edmund examined it under the pretense of gently pressing the washcloth on it.

"Anna, these are _fingers_ ," he said quietly, in horror. She could see what looked like realization dawning on him. "These are a man's fingers."

Having Edmund know that she had been attacked was bad enough, but having him know what Simcoe's intention had been was intolerable. She looked away from him, trying to keep her face hidden in shadow.

"Anna," he was saying her name so much tonight. "Did he…?"

She couldn't bring herself to let him finish his thought. He didn't deserve to be exposed to something like that. She shook her head, another sob escaping from her throat. " _Almost_ ," she whispered.

She could hear the sharp inhale of his gasp, and let him pull her into his embrace, gently running his hands through her hair. "Anna, I'm so sorry," he said softly, and she could hear the heart-wrenching hurt in his voice too. "What can I do?"

She was about to answer when his hands in her hair stopped.

"This happened last night," he said, his voice growing icy again. "After I left."

She didn't answer.

"Who was it?" he asked, but by the tone in his voice, Anna could tell that he already knew the answer. "Simcoe?"

Her ragged inhale told him all he needed to know. She could feel the rage lingering just barely underneath his skin, simmering there. His hand, around her own, clenched momentarily before he let her go, unwilling to cause her more pain.

"You have to report him," he said firmly. She shook her head. "Anna, he will do this again. He will do this to you again."

She was shaking now, her whole body quivering with it, with fear and loathing, and he reached for her shoulder again, gently letting his fingers curve over the lines of her face. She could see tears in his eyes, empathetic emotions that threatened to overtake him. She shook her head again, frantically.

"Anna, I couldn't save you last time, but I can keep it from happening again," he promised. "But you have to tell someone."

She let his hands gently start to ease her breathing into something more manageable, the smell of his cologne, of his home, slowly calming her. He pulled her in for another hug, and she felt him drop a soft kiss on the top of her head.

"I'll tell," she said finally, into the silence. He hugged her a little tighter, but didn't push her into telling the story.

"I'll go with you," he whispered.

She let him lead her to his bed, curling into the cool navy blue sheets. He eased in beside her and cradled her against his side, his hands gently kneading her shoulders and back. His hands were soft and sweet on her skin, and as she started to drift off to sleep, she could hear him whispering words of comfort and protection into her ear.

She didn't dream.


End file.
